Friday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- A new IMF working paper confirms the connection between employment deregulation and workers' share of income. And Jennefer Laidley points out the all-too-imminent danger that the Ontario PCs are about to undo what little belated progress had been made in making social assistance more effective, while Teviah Moro notes that social housing is bearing the brunt of cuts linked to Doug Ford's denial-based climate change policy. 

- Dean Beeby reports on a new survey showing that Canada Revenue Agency employees are as concerned as the general public about a tax system that favours the rich over everybody else. And Alex Hemingway offers this year's customary rebuttal of the Fraser Institute's oft-debunked spin on taxes.

- The Globe and Mail's editorial board recognizes that Doug Ford's attack on harm reduction in the name of nonexistent controversy about its impact on health outcomes will lead only to preventable deaths. And the Stoney Creek News explores the public health harms which can be expected to result from artificial reductions in alcohol prices.

- Lucius Couloute examines the close link between past incarceration and present-day homelessness in the U.S.

- Finally, Charlie Angus calls out John Baird for using his former role in government as an excuse to make money for his Saudi-connected employer. But it's worth being surprised that any former member of Stephen Harper's cabinet is managing to be an even more unprincipled shill after leaving that role.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Linda McQuaig criticizes the Cons' use of the tax system to try to silence charities who don't match their political message:

PEN now joins Amnesty International, the David Suzuki Foundation, Canada Without Poverty, the United Church and other groups that, having criticized an array of Harper policies, have been obliged to devote precious resources to defending themselves from a special probe of charities ordered by the Harper government.

This beefing-up of tax audits of charities is particularly striking when compared to Harper’s laid-back approach to auditing the real bad guys: corporations and citizens using offshore tax havens to cheat the government out of billions of dollars in revenue.

Indeed, the allocation of an extra $13 million to carry out audits of charities has taken place even as the government slashes the overall Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) budget by $250 million over three years and lays off hundreds of auditors.
...
Internal CRA documents, obtained under access-to-information by Sen. Percy Downe, reveal that an infusion of $30 million by Ottawa in 2005 to counter “aggressive international tax planning” resulted in the collection of an extra $2.5 billion over four years.

By contrast, putting extra resources into auditing charities will almost certainly produce no additional revenue.
...
(W)hile there aren’t enough auditors to go after many of the wealthy Canadian corporations and individuals hiding money offshore, the government managed to find two auditors to spend three days this week at PEN’s little Toronto office — the beginning of an audit that will go on for many months.

The Harperites may be inept at using audits to collect vast sums of revenue hidden by the rich — but they sure know how to beat up on defenceless groups trying to promote the public good.

- And Dean Beeby breaks the news that the Cons aren't satisfied going after charitable organizations, and instead want to be able to compile their own list of individual donors as well. But there is some push for disclosure where it's actually needed as a check on undue institutional influence, as MoveOn is calling for corporate spending in U.S. politics to be subject to public scrutiny.

- Bill Curry reports on the C.D. Howe Institute's recommendation that the federal government focus on economic development rather than deficit scolding - with Joe Oliver naturally responding that he has no interest in job creation if it might conflict with his political goals. And Rick Goldman comments on the futility of using austerity policies in the name of fighting deficits when they ultimately cause more harm than good even by that measure.

- Steven Chase discusses the latest application of the Baird Doctrine that bluster matters more than action in foreign policy - as a much-trumpeted aid announcement for the Ukraine four months ago has led to zero actual contribution from Canada.

- Finally, David Atkins connects the U.S.' drift to the right with participation in party primaries - as the Tea Party and other right-wing groups have driven Republican turnout (and thus policy oriented toward its base) while Democrats have been increasingly staying on the sidelines over the past 40 years:

When conservatives don't get what they want, they tend to double down at the ballot box. When progressives don't get what they want, many of us tend to storm away and fantasize about engaging the system outside of electoral politics somehow. This is part of why conservatives have been successful in moving the country to right.

I've brought these points up again and again. Politicians don't care about people who don't vote, and the Tea Party gets coddled because they actually vote in primaries and Democrats tend not to.

But, of course, Democratic politicians also bear a lot of the blame. It's awfully hard to get motivated to vote when you know that not much is going to change regardless of the outcome.

Even so, you can't lay the entire blame for the problem at the feet of centrist corporate Democrats. The trend toward lower turnout started in 1970, hardly the heyday of the DLC. Yes, Democratic politicians need to do a better job of advancing progressive priorities and building base enthusiasm. But progressive voters also need to come out and actually vote, too.

On contrasting treatment

BigCityLib comments on the Cons' hasty backtracking over Helen MacMurchy. But I find it particularly interesting to note the contrast between their treatment of MacMurchy and their handling of John A. MacDonald.

Remember that MacDonald's fervent commitment to an "Aryan Canada" and racial purity was publicly noted just as the Cons named a freeway after him. But in his case, the Cons conceded nothing at all.

So does that suggest that the Cons see the line for acceptable views on race somehow falling somewhere between MacDonald's views...

In 1885, John A. Macdonald told the House of Commons that, if the Chinese were not excluded from Canada, “the Aryan character of the future of British America should be destroyed …” This was the precise moment in the histories of Canada and the British Dominions when Macdonald personally introduced race as a defining legal principle of the state.

He did this not just in any piece of legislation, but in the Electoral Franchise Act, an act that defined the federal polity of adult male property holders and that he called “my greatest achievement.”

Macdonald’s comments came as he justified an amendment taking the vote away from anyone “of Mongolian or Chinese race.” He warned that, if the Chinese (who had been in British Columbia as long as Europeans) were allowed to vote, “they might control the vote of that whole Province” and their “Chinese representatives” would foist “Asiatic principles,” “immoralities,” and “eccentricities” on the House “which are abhorrent to the Aryan race and Aryan principles.” He further claimed that “the Aryan races will not wholesomely amalgamate with the Africans or the Asiatics” and that “the cross of those races, like the cross of the dog and the fox, is not successful; it cannot be, and never will be.” For Macdonald, Canada was to be the country that restored a pure Aryan race to its past glory, and the Chinese threatened this purity. 

...and MacMurchy's?

MacMurchy, a medical doctor who was the first head of the federal Department of Health’s child welfare division, was the most prominent promoter of eugenics in Canada in the early part of the 20th Century.

The doctrine of eugenics invoked science to claim that parents deemed unfit — in Canada, typically immigrants, unwed mothers, the disabled, the poor and First Nations people — passed on their inferior traits to their offspring, diluting and weakening the gene pool.
...
In an interview, Smith said that had she known of MacMurchy’s involvement in eugenics, she would have “run from the ceremony. I don’t care what she’s done. Anybody who has a philosophy like that, it’s appalling.”

Or is this once again a matter of gender and perceived dispensability serving as the Cons' dividing lines as to what they're prepared to defend - with a few crocodile tears about past abuses thrown in for good measure only when discussing the people they choose to toss overboard?

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Trish Hennessy assembles a handy set of ideas to deal with income inequality.

- No, there isn't much new in the Cons' familiar pattern of deceiving the public, covering it up, then lying by about the cover-up by blaming civil servants who can't publicly defend themselves. But it is a noteworthy development that Sun TV has apparently joined Stephen Harper among the upper ranks of Con symbols whose reputations are to be preserved at all costs.

- Meanwhile, Cons' latest frivolous use of public money - tens of thousands of dollars in car rental expenses in a walkable village - looks significant largely in the Cons' total lack of shame or self-awareness.

- But have no fear: if the Cons have their way when it comes to pulling away from the international scene, the rest of the world won't have any interest in noticing they're running a banana republic. 

- Finally, Tim Harper wonders whether issue-based cooperation across party lines in Simcoe North might lay the groundwork for electoral non-competition - though if anything it seems to signal more that there's value in working through non-party structures, rather than obsessing over how to force a formal agreement among competing parties.

Sunday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading.

- It's undoubtedly an embarrassment for John Baird to have leapt at a thoroughly implausible bit of anti-UN spin. But I'd think there's more reason for hope than concern in the long run: if a year into their majority mandate the Cons are still operating based on the minority-government mindset that they can do nothing better than to spin first and verify later (and then refuse to admit they were wrong), then surely that doesn't speak well of their ability to plan for the longer time frame leading up to the next federal election.

- Meanwhile, some commentators have bought into the claim that Peter Kent's response to climate change deniers in his own party sets him up as something less than the worst possible environment minister. But it's worth pointing out how his response frames what he sees as the acceptable range of debate: according to Kent the paranoid and/or polluter-funded ravings of anti-science denialists are "fair discussions", but anybody with the nerve to suggest that environmental considerations (including climate change) should actually be reflected in policy can only be classified as a traitor to Canada to be attacked by every means available.

- And on a related point, Dr. Dawg points out another bit of partisan absurdity, as Cons within the Senate are refusing a motion to apply their own overheated rhetoric about foreign involvement in Canadian charities when it comes to anybody other than the environmental movement the oil industry wants to silence.

- Finally, Brian Topp's Policy Options retrospective (PDF) on Allan Blakeney's tenure as premier of Saskatchewan is well worth a read.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your long weekend reading.

- While some of us may recognize that there's little reason to lend much credence to the talking points spewed out by any Con spokespuppet, others have tried to give the benefit of the doubt as long as possible. But Lawrence Martin notes that even by those standards, John Baird is losing any pretense of credibility. And Susan Delacourt notes that the Cons - while never known for maturity or reasonableness - are getting more childish by the day.

- Doug Saunders offers a look at what a Canada of 100 million people might look like. But let's recognize as well that we're far less likely to reach that point following the Cons' path of preferring disposable temporary foreign labour to an immigration policy that actually allows families to settle in Canada.

- Bruce Johnstone laments the fact that he's being proven right as to the harmful effects of eliminating the single-desk Canadian Wheat Board on western agriculture. 

- David Climenhaga classifies Dutch disease alongside climate change as areas where the Cons and their oil-sector allies are trying to shout down inconvenient truths.

- Finally, Tabatha Southey comments on the G20 report from Ontario's Independent Police Review Director:

(T)he G20 was a weekend of excess in every way. It seemed as if too much money had been spent on the whole affair. I was reminded of parties I once attended in the mostly unfurnished, newly rented homes of freshly successful film directors. Sometimes I’d think, “What is it that does this to people? A man earns some decent money and all of a sudden there’s an ice swan on the table.” A 30-year-old guy starts making $2-million a year, and suddenly he’s throwing his 50th wedding anniversary party. He forgets himself. He forgets the demographic he will be serving that weekend.

Close to $1-billion was spent on security for the G20 gathering. It was as if the officials won policing a summit in a lottery. Ostentatious displays of policing were everywhere – hundreds of riot-gear-clad officers charging repeatedly through peaceful crowds, banging their massive riot shields like so many big-screen TVs ordered in bulk for the guest bathroom.

Like the ice swan, these expenditures bore almost no relation to the events at hand. 

...

The G20 was the result of an unparalleled level of co-operation between federal, provincial & municipal governments. This would be inspiring had it not been three levels of government working together to deprive Canadians of their rights.

Some senior Toronto police commanders are expected to be charged shortly for a variety of misconduct offences. Currently 28 front-line officers face disciplinary hearings on complaints including unlawful arrests and use of excessive or unnecessary force.

We owe it to the protesters who marched peacefully, holding up signs with which I frequently did not agree, to get answers. Those protesters are placeholders for the time when a cause moves me, or anyone else, to demonstrate. I am grateful to them.

We also owe those answers to the many decent police officers who realize that the role of the police is never, as one officer interpreted his directions from superiors that weekend, to “own the streets.”

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Erin points out that there's a relatively simple cure for Dutch disease - just as long as provincial governments are willing to put citizens ahead of resource extractors:

(S)ince resources are priced in American dollars, the higher exchange rate further reduces provincial resource revenues in Canadian dollars. Saskatchewan’s recent budget estimates that each U.S. cent of appreciation in the loonie reduces non-renewable resource revenue by $34 million.

The solution is to increase royalty rates, which would moderate the flow of foreign funds into our resource industries and collect the public revenue needed for the provincial savings funds that MacPherson advocates.

Of course, if Saskatchewan did so alone, it would have relatively little impact on the national exchange rate. That is why Mulcair’s comments were directed at the unbalanced development of Alberta’s oilsands – a larger-scale giveaway of public resources.

But Wall is defensive because he has mimicked and even undercut Alberta by guaranteeing ultra-low royalties to the private corporations that extract Saskatchewan’s non-renewable resources. This policy would be short-sighted even if it had no effect on the exchange rate. Dutch disease, including a proportionally larger loss of manufacturing jobs in Saskatchewan than in the rest of Canada, is just another negative consequence.

Mulcair has articulated a balanced approach to resource development that would generate more public revenue, a more competitive exchange rate, and more manufacturing jobs. Saskatchewan is well positioned to help implement and benefit from this approach by raising provincial resource royalties.

- Chris Selley suspects that the Cons will really be in trouble when Canadians start laughing at them - and suggests there's ample reason to do so. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't also work on building outrage where it's justified - such as where the Cons hand million-dollar giveaways to their cronies for projects which have been soundly rejected on their merits.

- Meanwhile, there are also serious issues in play as the Cons work on dismantling any semblance of environmental protection in the name of resource-sector profits. And Thomas Walkom highlights the citizen-driven opposition to the Gateway pipeline as one type of dissent the Cons may have trouble silencing.

- Fortunately, it may simply be enough for everybody who's under gag orders from the Cons to decline to comply. Which may make the Cons' partial climbdown on F-35s interesting in light of the news that the aerospace sector was ordered not to comment on the subject.

Ostentation nation

Remember the dark days gone by when "gold-plated" political perks were only a metaphor? Because John Baird is apparently putting that long national nightmare behind us.

Tuesday Evening Links

This and that to end your Tuesday.

- The Ottawa Citizen tears a strip off the Cons' G8 patronage and cover-up:

The more details emerge about the way the government funnelled money into the Muskoka region under the convenient category of "G8 legacy infrastructure," the more "smalltown cheap" the whole thing looks.
...
In a sense, none of this money was theirs to spend. Parliament approved the funding under the mistaken impression that it was for border infrastructure.

In a larger sense, the government never had any business throwing public money around like this. Yes, municipalities were and are in sore need of a better model for infrastructure funding. But using an international summit as a tenuous excuse to create a oneoff, regional fund is not a good way to accomplish that goal. It's a good way to create the circumstances for cronyism and waste.

- And even Kelly McParland is less than impressed:

Now we discover, thanks to some innovative digging by the NDP, that Mr. Clement took personal command of the $50 million, setting up a command centre in his riding headquarters, creating a mini-council consisting of himself, the mayor of Huntsville and a local resort manager to sift through projects and pick the ones they liked. He convened meetings with area mayors to get input, dragged in bureaucrats from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Industry Canada, and Infrastructure Canada, and managed to avoid leaving a paper trail that might prove embarrassing if someone started poking their nose into his activities later.

Someone did start sniffing around — Auditor General Sheila Fraser — but even her formidable investigative skills missed the extent of what Clement was up to, or the fact he had the bureaucrats helping him out. And without supporting documentation, which seem be mysteriously absent, the Auditor General couldn’t tell whether projects were suitably chosen or not.

It’s not the way things are supposed to be done. The government isn’t supposed to just hand $50 million to a local MP and tell him to pick some projects for it. There’s red tape to be dealt with, and not all of it unnecessarily. There are standards and procedures to be satisfied when spending taxpayers’ dollars, and the whole Clement operation seems to have been organized to get around them.
...
Cover-up. Slush fund, Secret committee. No paper trail. All we need is Howard Hunt, a hidden tape machine and a trail of dirty campaign tricks and we could have a real scandal here.

- And pogge reminds us that it isn't Tony Clement that nominally approved the Cons' G8 spending - meaning that John Baird has plenty to answer for as well.

- Aaron Wherry painstakingly lists the topics for which the Cons have claimed a mandate from May's election. But for a next step, let's note that multiple topics on the list (attacking Air Canada workers, slashing the civil service, and cutting search and rescue operations as prime examples) are issues which were mentioned approximately zero times as part of the campaign which the Cons claim to have provided them with that mandate.

- Finally, Joe Comartin signals that the NDP is looking to point out how the Cons' disdain for evidence and rational policy-making conflicts with the values of Canada's legal community:

Joe Comartin says the country’s lawyers and judges are “offended professionally” by the Harper government’s law-and-order agenda, which is prohibiting any changes to its mandatory minimum sentencing legislation.

“They find this offensive as lawyers,” the NDP justice critic told The Globe. “The evidence is overwhelming this is the wrong approach. ... [Lawyers are] just so offended that they are shifting the criminal justice system as dramatically as it should be. They are offended professionally the government would do this.”
...
Lawyers at the CBA meeting were strong in their condemnation of the government’s tough-on-crime agenda, and its position on sentencing. And Mr. Comartin, a former defence lawyer, said past governments would consult with the legal profession if significant changes were being proposed. This one, he says, does not.
...
He added that the NDP continues to oppose the proposed legislation, pushing prevention rather than punishment and “knowing this is the most effective way to protect our citizens.”

Parliament In Review: June 14, 2011

With the debate over Libya taking up the time for debate, yesterday didn't see quite as much of a range of issues discussed as some previous days. However, there's still plenty of material worth noting from the day's events.

The Big Issue

Obviously, the main issue for the day was the extension of Canada's participation in the UN mission in Libya. But while most commentary seems to have painted the three official parties as having substantially the same position, the debate in fact featured both some noteworthy statements and some important differences.

In the pleasant surprise department, John Baird's response to Paul Dewar's question is noteworthy in highlighting at least one difference between the Cons and their cousins to the south:

The issue of rape being used as a weapon of war I think is abhorrent to every Canadian. The government would like to put some effort not just on the social side of providing assistance to victims of this heinous crime but also at the International Criminal Court. We must send a message when this is coordinated as an act of war that the international community will hold those accountable. That is something every Canadian strongly believes in and which this government will work with the International Criminal Court to support.

Which makes for a nice contrast against the Republicans' reflexive abhorrence of multilateral institutions generally and the ICC in particular - even if its practical effect is unclear.

In addition, some kudos go to Chris Alexander for asking as reasonable a question as one could possibly hope for - querying the NDP's Hélène Laverdière based on her professional experience as to which organizations could contribute to the effort.

On the down side, the Libs staked out some rather stunning ground for themselves. Not only did they completely dismiss the NDP's concerns about Canadian corporations having a role in building prisons for the Gadhafi regime, but Stephane Dion managed to assert that we should consider the presence of corporations which worked with a repressive regime as an advantage in rebuilding following its ouster.

And another obvious difference in position arose on the question of how long the Libyan mission would be expected to last. For the NDP, Libby Davies questioned the Cons as to whether there was any exit strategy, while Joe Comartin set out the NDP position that the extension voted on yesterday should be the only one. In contrast, the Libs' positions ranged from advising against talking about pulling out, to demanding a commitment that Canada remain involved until the institution of "democracy and the rule of law in Libya".

Vote of the Day

Meanwhile, while the nature of the votes on the extension has been well documented (with Elizabeth May as the only MP voting against each of the subamendment, amendment and motion), it's well worth noting how the votes came about in the first place. After all, the subamendment had already passed on a voice vote - meaning that MPs whose side had already won the vote made the effort to require a recorded vote anyway.

Poor Planning of the Day

It's not at all uncommon for the Cons to answer an opposition question about an issue related to a single constituent with a dismissive "we can't talk about individual cases". But I'd think it's much less common for them to give the same answer to one of their own planted questions - as happened when David Wilks criticized a Federal Court decision.

In Brief

While the day's debates were limited to Libya, there was still a couple of other noteworthy content from the members' statements and question period. In the former category, Robert Aubin's opening statement in the House of Commons included a call for proportional representation, suggesting that at least part of the NDP's Quebec contingent which took advantage of the quirks of FPTP is nonetheless committed to electoral reform. And in question period, Linda Duncan raised what would seem to be a rather chilling issue of covert CSIS surveillance of First Nations activists.

Note that I likely won't get a chance to post Parliament in Review for the next couple of days due to some travel.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- When Paul Wells tears into a story, you can be assured of results that are both entertaining and frustrating. This week, he's been hard at work pointing the complete lack of transparency and credibility in cuts which the Cons have already booked in this year's budget - which should tell us all we need to know about how much credence we should give to their deficit reduction rhetoric.

- Though at least the Cons are equal-opportunity cover-up artists, having made sure that their G8 debacle was funded without any written documentation at all.

- Which leads us to Susan Riley's latest:

On one hand, the new majority government has been promising judicious trimming of the federal bureaucracy, eliminating “inefficiencies,” stale-dated programs, redundant art curators — that stubborn “fat” that seems impervious to each periodic purge.

On the other, it stands accused in Thursday’s understated auditor general’s report on G8/G20 spending of the most blatant pork-barrelling in recent memory — essentially, two ministers, without benefit of bureaucratic oversight, carving up nearly $50 million in taxpayer money to prettify the Muskoka-area riding of then-industry minister Tony Clement.

The flimsy justification: some bored foreign reporter might have wandered father afield than the tightly constrained summit sight in Huntsville and needed to use a public washroom 20 kilometres away, or shelter from the sun in a pretty parkland gazebo.
...
It was Baird, as infrastructure minister, who approved the 32 projects only tangentially tied to the summit, dipping into an unrelated border infrastructure fund to pay for them — without telling Parliament. Odd behaviour from the father of the accountability act, but this was a rush job, he explained. No time, apparently, for a paper trail (sometimes known as accountability.)

This will be disquieting news to thousands of scrupulous public servants who now have to sign forms in triplicate, produce three witnesses, submit to a drug test and wait several months to be reimbursed for a $20 cab ride.

- Finally, John Gormley's sad defence of Stephen Harper's flight to is to declare that Harper is the decider - so that one he decided to attend the game he was entitled to saddle the public with any cost involved in that choice. Your principled fiscal conservatives at work!

Friday Afternoon Links

Content goes here.

- Robert Bothwell puts together one of the better descriptions I've seen of the Harper Cons, with a particular focus on the insignificance of their cabinet:

Harper ministers, it is true, have business cards, official cars, and even offices to sit in, but it is a real question whether they cast shadows or have a reflection in a mirror. In their offices sit appointees placed by the Prime Minister’s Office — official minders, perhaps reminiscent of the Soviet commissars who were assigned to inspire the troops and keep an eye on the generals.
...
The overall impression of the Harper cabinet is that its abilities are depressingly low. Consider Ontario’s John Baird, who serves as the government’s attack-buffoon, a special role that requires him to froth and fret in parliamentary committees. The effect is vaguely reminiscent of one of the tackier scenes in the movie Animal House.

Then there is Tony Clement, who after presiding over an explosion of subsidy and public works in his home riding in Muskoka, was required to go before the media and justify how the government was destroying the credibility of the Canadian census. Norman Mailer once wrote of a speech by Richard Nixon that watching it was like watching a man violate himself in public; the same may be said of Clement.
...
If Pearson’s era was a time of hope, Harper’s is a time of fear. Pearson was, and remained, the embodiment of that hope. Harper, regrettably, is its negation.

- Embassy nicely covers multiple sides of the current tax-cut debate. But I'm not sure there's any escaping the point made by Andrew Jackson:

(T)he corporations that did do well during the recession—in Canada, the commodities and financial sectors—are poised to make the biggest profits thanks to corporate tax cuts, but won't necessarily turn those profits into new jobs and investments.

"Everybody has this image in mind that cuts in corporate tax rates are going to result in investment in machinery and equipment," said Andrew Jackson, senior economist with the Canadian Labour Congress. But "a very large share of corporate profits in Canada are, in fact, earned in the resource sector, which is booming, and also in the financial sector, where rates of return really don't have much to do with real investment in the economy."

Mr. Jackson argues that most economic studies show business investment is related to the rate of growth of demand rather than capital costs like corporate taxes.

- The absurdity at Rights and Democracy doesn't figure to end anytime soon. But fortunately, neither does Paul Wells' coverage:

The audit shows, as Graeme Hamilton wrote in the National Post, that poor management at the organization “predated the presidency of Rémy Beauregard” and that he had “introduced changes to better control spending soon after arriving as president in 2008.” In short, “An organization whose annual budget of $11 million is supposed to defend human rights around the world has spent $253,000″—the cost of the untendered Deloitte contract—”to learn that its suspicions about Mr. Beauregard were unfounded.”

How unfounded? Gauthier’s main suspicion when he hired Deloitte, the audit report stated, was that R&D was sending $30,000 a month in clandestine payments to the agency’s Geneva office. Not only did Deloitte find no proof for this explosive accusation, it found no evidence for it. It was fantasy.
...
I would like nothing better (than to put the crisis behind us). But Lawrence Cannon will not let that happen because he wants the architects of this disaster to keep running the wreckage. Jacques Gauthier’s hunches and goose chases cost Canadian taxpayers $1 million last year. One-third of the R&D staff has quit. The organization has said no word of warning or celebration during the astonishing events in Tunisia and Egypt. Saad Eddin Ibrahim still lists his R&D affiliation in his bio. It used to be something to be proud of.

- Finally, Bill Curry and Campbell Clark document the latest example of tax expenses working for Conservatives rather than Canadians:

The Harper government is spending $6.5-million of public funds to promote its tax-cutting record in an advertising campaign centred on what is shaping up as a key election issue.
...
Some of the tax cuts are so small, like the $4-million spent each year on the Tradespersons’ Tools Deduction, that the cost of advertising the tax cut is actually more than what the government loses to offer the tax cut.

On protected sources

And in keeping with the media commentary theme, Jane Taber unveils the worst excuse for anonymity I've ever heard:

A month ago, a $500-a-head fundraiser to help John Baird’s re-election efforts noted that “in all likelihood a federal election will be called in 2011.”

In a few short weeks, however, that rhetoric has been ramped up considerably. A second email invitation sent around this week suggests the enemy is now at the gate.
...
A recipient of the invite, who asked to remain anonymous, noted the change in tone: “Two weeks ago it’s to help John prepare now it’s to come celebrate or vilify the nasty coalition.”

Which raises the question: who precisely is so afraid of not being invited to John Baird's fund-raisers as to need media protection?

Monday Afternoon Links

Content goes here.

- Pogge nicely rebuts the effort of the Cons and their media allies to rewrite the Harper government's history of economic mismanagement:

L. Ian MacDonald joins the list of right-leaning pundits intent on cementing the notion that whatever failings Stephen Harper may demonstrate, he's given us competent government and especially where the economy is concerned.

Apart from the five priorities, the principal achievement of the Harper government has been navigating the economy through the dangerous shoals of the Great Recession to the safe harbour of recovery.

Which completely ignores the fact that the Harper government had already created a structural deficit through a combination of profligate spending and injudicious tax cuts before the recession hit. It also ignores the fact that Stephen Harper, Economist Extraordinaire, denied that the Great Recession was even happening until it became undeniable and then claimed that it wouldn't have any impact on Canada. And it ignores the fact that the stimulus package, such as it was, came about because the opposition forced it by threatening to bring the government down unless it changed course.

Oh, and that banking system the Conservatives are fond of bragging about? They didn't build it; they inherited it. All those jobs that have been recovered? If you look under the surface you find that in many cases we've traded permanent, full time, high-paying jobs for part-time or temporary ones.

- Apparently unveiling a party's election readiness is now considered unacceptable posturing by the ever prim-and-proper Cons. Somebody should inform the last party to do so.

[Update: Aaron Wherry says it better.]

- Brian Topp theorizes that the Libs' current weakness may serve to expand the range of political choice available to Canadians for a long time to come:

(O)ne of the many gifts to Canada provided by the steady hollowing-out of the federal Liberal Party under its unbroken string of weak, uninspired and uninspiring leaders since prime minister Jean Chrétien was ousted in a thuggish coup a decade ago is that an enormous amount of political space has been created for Canadians to discover leaders and priorities they can support among Canada’s other mainstream national political parties.

Whatever your political persuasion, that has to be a good thing.
...
If Stephen Harper is defeated in the next election or replaced in the first days of the next Parliament, that will probably stand as his principal achievement – the final breaking of one-party rule in Canada, to the benefit of all citizens.

And as that Vancouver Sun report (listing Jack Layton as by far Canada's most popular leader) suggests, credible, mainstream choices are now available on the opposition bench that don’t require us to hold our noses, close our eyes, and return to the past.

- And finally, in case anybody was worried that the Cons weren't spending enough public money for their own political benefit, we can add $900,000 for news release services to the list.

Monday Evening Links

Assorted reading material to close out your day...

- Aaron Wherry nicely highlights the proud Con/Lib bipartisan tradition of proclaiming a "first step" toward dealing with climate change. But it's worth noting that the phrase figures to be a particular favourite for the Cons due to the implication that virtually no progress has been made so far, suggesting that we shouldn't expect to reach a destination anytime soon.

- Andrew Potter's Canadian Business article on inequality is well worth a read:

While we are not living in anything like the original Gilded Age, rising inequality is not a myth, either. The good news about inequality in the United States and Canada is that, unlike inequalities of yore, where kings and aristocrats enriched themselves largely by confiscating wealth from the masses, it is not coming at the expense of those lower down the pay scale. The poor are not being economically impoverished — in fact, they are doing better in absolute terms than ever before. It is just that the very rich are running away from the rest of us. The bad news is that unchecked and runaway inequality, regardless of absolute income levels, and regardless of its causes, has unhealthy consequences that get worse as the chasm between rich and poor grows.

This is why the argument over inequality matters. The stakes are significant, and huge questions of public policy — including the shape of the tax system, the size and scope of social programs, and the priorities of the government — hinge on whether we care to rein in the widening divide between society’s most and least fortunate.

- John Ivison is at least somewhat skeptical of the Cons' current spin on a North American security perimeter. But do we really want to see the issue as merely a matter of political communication rather than one with serious substantive effects?

- Finally, Scott Taylor nicely calls out Peter MacKay for claiming to be the lone clairvoyant who can foresee exactly what F-35s will wind up costing:

Following that dog-and-pony show and some brief discussions with American industry officials, MacKay held a teleconference with Canadian journalists. Along with his counterpart, Industry Minister Tony Clement, MacKay told his selected reporters that the Conservative government is convinced the planned acquisition of 65 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters will be on time and on budget.

Such a ridiculous claim would be laughable were it not for the fact that, with an initial price tag of $9 billion and another estimated $7 billion in lifetime maintenance costs, the project will be the most expensive military purchase in our nation’s history.
...
When questioned about the cost overruns with the Cyclones and Chinooks, Ross admitted only that "in-service support estimation is very hard."

To support this argument, Ross pointed out to the parliamentarians: "We all drive cars . . . but who can tell me what the cost of gas will be next week?"

Apparently, MacKay can.

In fact, MacKay can assure us the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters — a developmental aircraft that is experiencing all sorts of technical teething troubles, a jet we will not officially contract to purchase until 2013 at the earliest and will not take delivery of until 2016 and plan to fly until 2050 — will absolutely be on time and on budget.

That’s unbelievable!

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading...

- I haven't yet commented on the latest effort to tie Canada's regulatory and structures to the U.S., and will plan to get there shortly. But for now, go read Alison on the inevitability that the Security and Prosperity Partnership would emerge in a new form, and Thomas Walkom on the futility of selling out sovereignty for supposed border convenience that's never going to come.

- I'll agree with Andrew Coyne that we could do wonders to improve the balance between party leaders and other elected representatives by eliminating the requirement that leaders sign off on all nominations.

But while I do think elected MLAs and MPs should have a greater role in being able to represent their constituencies, I do have to ask: since when are they the be-all and end-all of party preferences? And what rationale can there possibly be for deliberately excluding all ridings which don't have an elected member - but who may be crucial to the party's cause in seeking to form government - from a decision as to who's going to serve as the top figure within the party?

- Jeffrey Simpson rightly points out that while John Baird is providing his usual supply of hot air for domestic consumption, there's no reason for anybody at the Cancun climate negotiations to listen to a word he has to say:

Even before his departure, Mr. Baird began blaming China, India, Brazil and others for not doing nearly enough to bring down greenhouse-gas emissions. It was largely the fault of developing countries such as these that the Kyoto Protocol failed, he claimed, and why a new climate-change agreement wouldn’t work.

Canada is right to urge big developing countries to do better and more than what they’ve thus far proposed. Canada also would be right to do something serious itself before lecturing others, since Canada has the worst record in the advanced industrialized world.

Mr. Baird’s aggressive message – a classic instance of throwing stones at glass houses – was designed entirely for Canadian consumption, since Canada long ago lost any shred of credibility on the world stage for climate change.
...
The world understands this. It knows Canada is deeply hypocritical when it criticizes others, because Canada, as one of the world’s largest per capita emitters, attends every climate-change meeting with dirty hands, empty rhetoric and inadequate policies. It knows the Harper government doesn’t like the climate-change file, wants desperately to protect the oil and gas industries, and doesn’t believe there’s a single vote in climate-change action.

No one at Cancun would pay serious attention to Mr. Baird. His bluster was intended for domestic consumption, to reassure those Canadians – many of whom are lodged in the Conservative Party and the media’s right-wing elements – who want no action taken against climate change.

- And finally, the Star nicely comments on the need for a serious push to deal with inequality in both power and money between the corporate sector and mere citizens:

For generations, people have come to this country to find a better life for themselves and their families. They have helped build a prosperous nation, where most people had access to a decent job and reasonable income.

Governments created laws that struck a balance between the power of corporations and the rights of working people. Most of us were able to find respect for our skills and knowledge, and to be paid accordingly.

In recent years, however, much has changed. The immense greed that fed the global financial markets has seeped into the core values of Canadian business.

Nowadays companies are only happy if there are tax cuts, subsidized profits and a pliable workforce. The same powerful actors who nearly wrecked the world economy are now shamelessly demanding that governments and workers do their bidding — or suffer the consequences.

There’s no doubt that a lot of these guys wear quality timepieces worth more than the rest of us earn in a year. The gap between rich and poor in this country has grown tremendously in recent times.

And unless something happens, it will only grow wider as mid-level incomes disappear from the reality of many families.

Full circle

When the Cons first took office, their first step in dealing with climate change was to abandon any intention of complying with a global agreement which set comprehensive, country-by-country targets in favour of a "Made in Canada" scheme that of course never developed.

When people started asking questions about their annual declarations that a national plan was coming "next year", the Cons responded that it was silly to try to develop anything in Canada rather than harmonizing a strategy with the U.S. as Canada's largest trading partner.

And now that the U.S. is actually implementing some standards for large industrial facilities, the Cons are declaring their intention to ignore what the U.S. is doing...because it isn't comprehensive enough.

Which raises the question: can we all agree to ignore the Cons' talking points du jour on climate change in favour of the general conclusion that they're firmly opposed to whatever anybody proposes to do about it?

The height of credibility

Memo to John Baird: now might not be the time to pretend that the House of Commons can pass on studying issues based on the expectation that the Senate will take them seriously.

Monday Morning Links

An assortment of reading material to start your week...

- Gerald Caplan offers up a suggested Middle East reading list for Cons willing to learn about the true state of the world. Which should come in handy just as soon as they return from the unicorn riding academy.

- Ralph Surette nicely pegs what the Harper Cons mean for Canada:

One thing the vast majority of us are distinctly not waiting for is for the Harper government to actually improve anything, especially not to advance the cause of a properly functioning democracy. On the contrary, the drift is ominous: towards a tyrannical control from the Prime Minister’s Office aimed at dismantling large parts of the Canadian state, punishing anyone who questions its aims, manipulating information, and turning the society into an alloy of right-wing religion and big money.

The truly ill-omened part is that Stephen Harper can do this while in a minority. That is, even if the Conservatives do shoot themselves in the head — and they came close by destroying the census long form as a useful public instrument — they’ll keep governing in zombie form if the opposition remains as fractured as it is.

- Erin offers to sell out to BHP Billiton.

- The CP reports on what would need to be done for B.C. to walk away from the HST. But as ominous as the consequences are made to sound by corporate mouthpieces, they really amount to giving back the bribe offered up by the Harper Cons - meaning that other than having wasted time and effort trying to impose the tax, the province wouldn't be any worse off if it's repealed than if it had never been introduced.

- Finally, the Cons are breaking new ground in claiming that minority governments are entitled to hide all political operations from any opposition or public scrutiny. But once again, the "ministerial responsibility" excuse looks all the more ridiculous when the Cons' side is presented by their Pit Bull In Chief rather than, say, the minister who could possibly be responsible for the information suppression at issue.

Mr. Hill's prior statements are no longer operative

Kristen Shane highlights a fairly classic difference in spin between John Baird and Jay Hill over the latter's replacement as the Cons' House Leader which speaks volumes about why Hill may well have been frustrated by "excessive control":

"I think if you ask Mr. Hill, he would tell you he requested to step down," said Mr. Baird.

When asked whether he would have wanted to keep his government house leader job until the next election, Mr. Hill responded to The Hill Times last week: "I was willing and continue to be willing to serve in whatever capacity the Prime Minister would ask of me."

He was in a remote part of his riding late last week and unable to respond to further questions about whether he was indeed frustrated by a high level of PMO control over his office, as opposition members suggest.

Of course, the obvious contrast will lead to a rather interesting test of Hill's independence until the next election. Presumably there isn't much Harper can use against him now that he's been removed from any position of particular influence and doesn't need to worry about re-election - so he would seem to have a golden opportunity to not only stick up for his own views, but also provide some perspective on exactly how stifling Harper has been from the inside.

But on the other hand, the rest of Hill's partymates are still trapped in Harper's cult of personality, and may well prefer not to have to defend that fact in the face of somebody telling inconvenient truths. So it won't be too much surprise - and indeed would entirely in keeping with the Cons' practices - for Hill to either declare that he simply misunderstood his own intentions in order to protect the Supreme Leader's infallibility, or be permanently sent to "a remote part of his riding".