Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Randy Robinson points out that while it's worth setting a higher bar for all kinds of precarious work, it's particularly problematic for governments to try to attack protections for the people charged with delivering public services:

These are many more examples of public sector jobs gone bad. And let’s not forget all the contracted-out services paid for by government but now delivered by private employers. When it comes to these services, government is no different from any company that aims to dodge union wages for its “non-core” functions by sending work to the lowest bidder. Cost, not job quality, is what matters most.

The ritual punishment of all public employees after recessions is cyclical and—we hope—soon coming to an end. But the growth of a precarious public sector workforce is a structural transformation that mirrors what is happening right across the economy. If the current government is serious about helping precarious workers, it can’t ignore its own.

- Leslie Young reports on a spike in food bank usage among other indicators of poverty and precarity in Canada. Matt Bruenig breaks down the face of poverty in the U.S., while Bryce Covert looks at the added difficulties facing single mothers trying to raise children without any secure source of income And Ina Jaffe discusses how gender inequality continues into retirement.

- Danyaal Raza, Steve Morgan and a group of health experts make the case for a national pharmacare program.

- David Climenhaga takes a look at the University of Calgary's corporate influence scandal - and why we shouldn't be the slightest bit surprised.

- Finally, John Klein duly slams John Gormley, Brad Wall and everybody else seeking to create a mob against convenient minority targets. And Paul Orlowski highlights the fact that Saskatchewan as a whole is more than ready to welcome refugees even if its current premier wants to foment suspicion, while Climenhaga is optimistic that Wall's cynical attempt to play to bigotry will lead to political repercussions.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jason Fekete reports on the growing recognition that tax evasion and avoidance are serious global problems - and the Cons' attempt to be seen nodding at the issues. Needless to say, that posturing would be far more plausible if the same Cons weren't simultaneously announcing their intention to slash the Canada Revenue Agency's enforcement capability even further (in keeping with their past moves to attack the CRA).

- Meanwhile, the fallout from Peter Penashue's acceptance of illegal corporate campaign donations continues. And it's well worth highlighting the fact that the financial agent now being labeled as an "inexperienced volunteer" in an effort to deflect blame was in fact appointed by Stephen Harper to a patronage position as his reward for that service to his party.

- In a similar vein, Craig McInnes expands on the revelations surrounding the B.C. Libs - featuring a cabinet minister who denied any knowledge of a scheme to use public resources for partisan ethnic voter targeting saying "great job" in response to an e-mail advising of the need to cover the government's tracks.

- Bruce Johnstone rightly criticizes Brad Wall's hot air over Keystone XL.

- And finally, Bob Turner grades John Gormley's paean to standardized testing. Much hilarity ensues.

On divisions

Dan Tan has already provided one follow-up post on the sudden rash of commentary arising out of Erin Weir's decision to withdraw from the Saskatchewan NDP leadership race and endorse Ryan Meili. But I'll take my own look at how the Weir endorsement and the associated reaction from the Village (or should we call it the Hamlet for Saskatchewan?) may affect the leadership campaign.

As long as there were four leadership candidates in the race, there were several ways to try to draw dividing lines among them. And the message that's suddenly crystallized in the media wouldn't have registered as the most obvious classification schemes.
 
One could view the most important differences in the campaigns were geographical, with Meili/Broten and Wotherspoon/Weir largely representing Saskatoon and Regina members respectively while competing for other votes around the province. Or one could contrast the above-the-fray messages and statesmanship from Meili/Wotherspoon against the more conflict-oriented approaches of Broten/Weir.

Even for those wanting to divide the campaign into Meili/Weir and Broten/Wotherspoon groupings, there were other more sound grounds for doing so (insider vs. outsider, detailed policies vs. high-level platforms) aside from the ideological framework applied by Gormley and Mandryk. And that goes doubly since Weir's narrow focus on royalty loopholes and criticism of broader review processes could arguably be seen as less ambitious (if more certain to bring in some additional revenue) than the reviews favoured by the other candidates in establishing the fiscal basis for progressive policy.

Finally, the candidates themselves had conspicuously avoided dividing themselves into consistent groupings - as each wanted to preserve enough distinctions from potential challenges on any one set of criteria by pointing out the importance of others. Indeed, as I observed here, Wotherspoon declined what amounted to an offer from Broten to divide the race based on MLA experience.

But with the field down to three and with Meili all but cementing his place on any final ballot, most of the permutations and combinations have disappeared.

Instead, the most important question from here on in looks to be whether members vote based on the perception of three camps or two. Unless Broten and Wotherspoon's respective supporters link their interests together in a way the candidates haven't done, Meili looks to have a significant advantage. But it will be well worth watching whether the media intervention actually encourages that dynamic where it might not have developed otherwise.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your afternoon reading.

- Stephen Maher exhorts the Cons to stop stifling democratic debate, featuring a strong point by NDP MP Jack Harris:

When Harris was first elected to Parliament in 1987, he said, and Brian Mulroney had a majority, the government regularly adopted opposition amendments.

"We don't expect you to adopt every one of our amendments," he said. "We'd like you to, but we don't expect you to. We expect you to listen to them with respect. We expect you to consider them seriously and we would hope that you would adopt some of them that are either improvements to the bill, because you haven't thought of those things or you're willing to consider new ideas. That's not a bad thing."
...
It is easy for politicians to take advice from obsequious underlings and pass their time bragging, cutting ribbons, handing out cheques and receiving respectful applause. But it is dangerous to believe your own press releases, and wise to listen carefully to your critics.

The Conservatives have a majority. They should get over themselves and let the opposition MPs do their (expletive) jobs.

- Meanwhile, Chris Cobb highlights another perverse effect of the Cons' dumb-on-crime legislation. And Boris rightly slams another draconian bit of legislation that's far too likely to pass as a Con private member's bill absent some strong public outcry.

- JJ points to Chris Hayes' scoop about the effort of Republican-connected lobbyists to attack the Occupy movement on behalf of banksters.

- Dave Johnson highlights a few of the services that should be kept public - but have all too often been privatized based on the right's desire to hand over free profits to the corporate sector.

- Finally, a couple of new sources to watch in Saskatchewan: Slim Evans, featuring a review of some of the points the Saskatchewan NDP can stand to improve in the years to come; and an effort to Stop John Gormley.

On analogous choices

John Gormley strains to try to invent analogies between football and politics to support the Sask Party's cause. (And I'm half disappointed he didn't have a couple thousand more words to fill, since I'm sure then we'd have been treated to his substance-free musings as to how NDP MLA Sandra Morin is just like 'Riders linebacker Jeremiah Weatherspoon.)

But there's one analogy between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the political scene that should actually matter to voters. Right now, the 'Riders are suffering on the field in large part because they wrongly believed they could coast on moderate success and holdover personnel, rather than striving to improve on past results. And the province should make sure not to make the same mistake when the Sask Party tells citizens it isn't worth trying to improve on the status quo this fall.

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!

Suddenly it all makes sense

No, Sask Party Watch's post documenting John Gormley's refusal to talk to PC Leader Rick Swenson wasn't much of a surprise from the standpoint of civility and openness to debate. But I did find it somewhat odd that Gormley would be refusing to hear criticism of the Wall government even from the right.

Suffice it to say that's one mystery solved.

On media access

LRT is right to note that there's far less actual demand for right-wing propaganda than one would think from the sheer amount of it available. But at the same time, we also shouldn't underestimate its reach or ignore its dangerous effects.

After all, the number of people reached by even a relatively unpopular broadcast outlet may well be enough to sway public opinion by influencing what gets discussed and how. And there are plenty of examples of wealthy owners taking a loss on media outlets in order to better serve their interests elsewhere - e.g. by shouting down any talk of a progressive tax system, or (as in the current brouhaha) fomenting anger at workers.

That's why the likes of John Gormley will perpetually have access to a substantial audience, even if truly market-based decisions would see them turfed. And it's why we can't afford to let his ilk get too extreme without being called out through the more modest media that we have available.

You know the Cons have gone over the line when...

...even John Gormley slams their efforts made to make voting more difficult:

(A)s Elections Canada tried to address voting security, if the reports of dozens of people being turned away from polling stations for lack of identification are any indication, they might have gone too far. If someone is not on the voters' list, some tough standards may be needed. But for people already on the list who show up to vote with a voters' card, why not make one generic piece of ID suffice? It's highly improbable that a fraudulent voter could steal a voters' card from the mailbox and also happen to swipe an ID with a matching name.

Not that I agree entirely with Gormley when it comes to "tough standards" for voters not on a list, as that figures to make matters even worse for transient voters who are far too easily excluded. But it's certainly worth pointing out that the Cons' suppression efforts aren't even supported by their media base - and working to ensure that as many of them as possible are reversed by the next federal election.