Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Jamey Keaten and Seth Borenstein report on the World Meteorological Association's finding that we've just had the hottest summer in recorded history. And Chelsey Harvey highlights how the combination of extreme heat and other climate calamities looks to be a harbinger of worse to come rather than an outlier. 

- Which naturally means that the UCP is echoing Steve Bannon's talking points in order to promote carbon pollution, while also pouring tens of millions more public dollars into the unaccountable war room for advertising campaigns to peddle dirty energy. 

- Matthew Black reports on Alberta's continued pattern of losing hundreds of residents to drug poisoning deaths every month. 

- Nicholas Keung reports on the Moe government's decision to prioritize primarily-white source countries for immigration as part of the Saskatchewan Party's idea of sovereignty. 

- Finally, Kathleen Hilchey writes about the need for trans students to find care and support rather than  systematic bigotry in schools. And John Ibbitson calls out Scott Moe, Blaine Higgs and other right-wing governments for fomenting hate rather than ensuring children have a safe educational experience. 

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Iglika Ivanova examines who has lost jobs to COVID-19, and who needs public support to be able to return to the workforce. Tara Deschamps reports on an RBC study showing women's participation in the workforce has been set back three decades by the coronavirus pandemic and the male-focused policy response. And the Economist makes the case that school reopening is at the top of the priority list in determining what interactions should be allowed and funded.

- Kathryn Blaze Baum reports on the Libs' failure to enforce rules which would have protected migrant workers from COVID-19.

- Larry Summers and Anna Stansbury write about the importance of empowering workers to bargain collectively for better than they can force employers to offer by themselves. William Harris discusses the value of building working-class cultural institutions beyond labour and tenants' unions. And David Frayne argues that the disruption to an already-problematic status quo should lead us to rethink the insistence that only people with traditional paid employment be treated as worthy of public support.

- John Ibbitson discusses how the Trudeau Libs resolutely refuse to learn any lessons from scandals borne out of an overarching sense of entitlement. And Yves Engler notes that the real problem with the WE scandal is the development of tourist volunteerism intended to bolster the status quo as a substitute for grassroots organizing to actually pursue change.

- Finally, Gil McGowan discusses the growing authoritarian tendencies of right-wing politicians - and need for citizens to force a reversal of that pattern both at the ballot box and in their communities.

Leadership 2017 Links

The latest from the federal NDP's leadership campaign as the first voting window remains open.

- Power & Politics and the Toronto Star have each posted new summaries of the candidates and their plans. Gloria Galloway reports on Charlie Angus' campaign as focusing on taking the NDP back to its roots. And Maura Forrest interviews Niki Ashton about her efforts to pull the NDP to the left.

- Stephen Tweedale examines how Jagmeet Singh's platform addresses both poverty and inequality - including both direct redistribution and protections for vulnerable workers. Dan Donovan offers his endorsement to Angus based in substantial part on his view that Angus is speaking more to a business audience - which makes for a noteworthy contrast with John Ibbitson's argument that Singh would be the candidate to fundamentally change the NDP's orientation toward pursuing immigrant and suburban voters while reducing the relative role of organized labour. And Thomas Walkom argues that Angus may be the perfect candidate for the traditional NDP - but may not be what members are looking for after coming close to winning power. 

- Chantal Hebert points out that conventional wisdom about Quebec voters has been proven wrong repeatedly in recent elections - suggesting that the assumption that Singh's religion will actually be an issue may be similarly flawed. Supriya Dwivedi questions whether a potential coalition which specifically embraces voters motivated by religious discrimination is worth pursuing based on both its unreliability in Quebec, and its message to voters across Canada. And the Globe and Mail calls out the intellectual dishonesty behind Quebec's Bill 62.

- Finally, Christo Aivalis offers his take on what the NDP should learn from the successes of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn - with particular emphasis on the need to inspire supporters with bold and clear social democratic policies.

How to create warped incentives

Shorter John Ibbitson:

The NDP is being entirely responsible in preparing for the possible outcomes of the next federal election, and must be punished for it.

On absolutism

Shorter John Ibbitson:

The Very Serious People hereby demand that Thomas Mulcair give a definitive yes-or-no answer on all possible trade agreements before we even know what's in them.

On consensus positions

I won't break down in detail the bevy of reviews of the current position of Tom Mulcair and the federal NDP - including pieces by Bruce Stewart, John Ibbitson and John Geddes. But it's worth highlighting the areas where I'd see no need to challenge the consensus reflected in those articles - as well as the one where some pushback is absolutely needed.

On the bright side, there's little reason to see anything but opportunity in the public's views of both the NDP as a voting option, and Mulcair as a leader. As Geddes in particular notes, the main goals for a party approaching an election figure to be a sufficient base to support a strong national campaign, and a plausible path to build on that base toward a winning coalition.

And all indicators on that front look to be positive.

Of course, any party would prefer to start with the pole position. But there's plenty of room for growth as part of a close three-way contest (as appears to be the current state of federal politics). And indeed, the media narrative of "Mulcair is great, but has anybody noticed?" looks like a rather nice launching pad for a winning campaign - as the positive impressions built between elections create room for a strong campaign to resonate.

In that respect, remember that the NDP started the 2011 campaign in the mid-teens in the polls - and with a leader whose approval ratings weren't substantially different from Mulcair's today. But is there some reason to think Mulcair might have more trouble adding to the current starting point?

Well, both Ibbitson and Geddes make the claim that the public will see mindless support for free trade in all possible forms is a mandatory precondition for any party or leader being fit to govern. And from that starting point, both insist that Mulcair has no choice but to get in line behind the CETA - no matter how much that might frustrate a large number of existing supporters.

But I'm not sure one could invent a better example of the commentariat substituting its own views for those of voters in the absence of a shred of evidence.

The persuadable voters being pursued during the course any campaign are likely to be those with the fewest entrenched policy positions. And anybody willing to vote solely on their devotion to free trade is almost certain to be either a committed Con or at best a Con/Lib swing voter - and thus well beyond the NDP's pool of potential supporters.

Meanwhile, the CETA also offers huge opportunities to build on the NDP's preferred messages: what better way to be the party of affordability than to point out billions of extra dollars in prescription drug costs foisted on the public?

Instead, the larger question remains that of how to emerge as the most liked and trusted leader in the face of Justin Trudeau's campaign to be all things to all people. But taking any meaningful policy principles off the table will only strengthen Trudeau's hand.

As for what will enable the NDP to gain the upper hand, that remains to be seen. In retrospect, the NDP's Senate abolition campaign could hardly have worked out any better in placing the party alone alongside the general public. And there figure to be plenty more opportunities for Trudeau to either end up on the wrong side of major issues, or watch his personal image succumb to another Con ad blitz.

If that doesn't happen, then the NDP's best course of action is to grow the number of committed base voters who won't be taken in by a charm offensive. But if it does, the NDP is as well positioned to form government as it's ever been. And Mulcair's strong performance in Parliament can only bode well for his chances of winning over the public once the campaign starts.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- John Ibbitson reports that the Cons' obvious priorities have finally been made explicit: as far as they're concerned, the sole purpose of international diplomacy is to serve the corporate sector. And Ian Smillie documents how the Cons hijacked Canada's foreign aid program (while signalling that the same path is likely to be followed by the Cons' Australian Liberal allies).

- Meanwhile, CBC uncovers a offshore tax avoidance scheme perpetrated by one of the Cons' hand-picked tax advisers (and chair of the Royal Canadian Mint).

- Rhys Kesselman highlights the fact that contrary to the spin of the corporate sector, a more secure CPP will actually prove a huge boost for younger workers. And the OECD points out why Canada's retirement savings system is in desperate need of improvement:

(A)s (seniors') poverty rates were falling in many OECD countries between 2007 and 2010, in Canada they rose about two percentage points.

As well, the report notes that public (government) transfers to seniors in Canada account for less than 39 per cent of the gross income of Canadian seniors, compared with the OECD average of 59 per cent, meaning more Canadians depend on workplace pensions to bridge the gap.

Meanwhile, public spending on pensions in Canada represents 4.5 per cent of the country's economic output, compared with and OECD average of 7.8 per cent.

Canadian seniors depend on income from private pensions and other capital for about 42 per cent of their total.

"As private pensions are mainly concentrated among workers with higher earnings, the growing importance of private provision in the next decades may lead to higher income inequality among the elderly," the report warns.

"Those facing job insecurity and interrupted careers are also more exposed to the risk of poverty because of the lower amounts they can devote to retirement savings."

- Martin Regg Cohn takes a look at Ontario's economy after a decade of corporate tax slashing - and finds that as usual, the only effect of cutting taxes at the top has been to leave less for everybody else:

Rather than closing a productivity gap with our American competition, Ontario is lagging further behind.

Corporate taxes have been cut to record low levels, yet our companies are sitting on unprecedented stashes of so-called “lazy cash.”

Instead of displaying entrepreneurial zeal to boost exports, our business leaders evince timidity by failing to invest in needed equipment, R&D, software, patents and other productivity tools.
...
Despite the Liberals transforming the tax system into “one of the most business-friendly” in the industrialized world, “businesses have not fully taken advantage of the many incentives that have been created to promote growth.”

Liberals like to claim that Ontario leads in attracting foreign investment, but that boast camouflages the lack of homegrown investment by our domestic businesses. Despite generous tax incentives, spending on machinery and equipment has declined in the past five years (on a per-worker basis, which hurts our productivity). Investment in information technology has nosed up, but at roughly half the American rate. During all this time, Canadian companies have bolstered their cash reserves.

- Finally, Duncan Cameron asks whether the Senate can serve any useful purpose within Canada's system of government. But while he's right to reject the options normally mooted to reform the upper chamber, I'm not sure the possibility that appointment by lot would be an improvement on the status quo (and all other proposed reforms short of abolition) reflects a defence of the Senate so much as the ultimate argument to get rid of it.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Tabatha Southey rightly turns Brad Trost into a poster boy for the Harper Cons' deliberate aversion to critical self-evaluation:

We shouldn’t be too quick to judge.

Let’s instead take a cue from Conservative MP Brad Trost, who, when questioned regarding the calls, said, “I don’t think there was anything wrong with the robo-call. I think it was good and accurate information and we should stand behind it.”

Then Canada’s Candide went on to add, “I didn’t hear it. I don’t know the script. Don’t know anything. … One of my colleagues had it at her residence and her husband got it and he said it was fine. I’ll take his word for it.”

We may have lost the penny this week, but I hope we coined the word “Trostful,” which I will define as “marked by a total belief in the reliability, truth and strength of anything your colleague tells you was said to her by her husband, or similar evidence.”

 - Meanwhile, Murray Mandryk is rather sharper in his depiction of the Cons:

That the Conservatives denied involvement in the anonymous robocalls until being caught, red-handed, by the PostMedia voice analysis makes this explanation a dubious one. But that they have kept repeating the deceit at every available opportunity pretty much shows how disingenuous their denials really are..

They offered nonsense briefs to the commission arguing Saskatchewan hadn't grown much in the past 10 years and rural and urban voters had identical interests anyway. They stacked the meetings with friendlies spewing similar nonsense. They exaggerated how many of their friend-lies actually attended the meetings or presented briefs and then they claimed these meetings represented 75-per-cent provincewide opposition to the new boundaries.

And even when caught with their little "miscommunication" of the truth - even when the Conservatives had to own up to the fact that they were the ones responsible for the phoney and misleading push polling - they remorselessly did it in a way in which they simply repeated every one of the above falsehoods all over again.

Remorse? You've got a better chance of finding it in most federal prisons.

- Charles Hamilton reports on the Sask Party's announcement that it won't countenance any public benefit from alcohol sales. Don Gunderson rightly responds that it's the citizens of the province who will lose out as a result of that corporate giveaway.

- Chantal Hebert and John Geddes both wonder whether the particularly egregious abuses of public trust and money from Stephen Harper's highest-profile Senate appointees will pave the way for the abolition of the unelected chamber.

- And finally, John Ibbitson concludes the Globe and Mail's series on making Parliament relevant again by writing that courage on the part of MPs is the most important ingredient in a democratic revival.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- While we may sometimes lose track of the continuing differences between Canadian politics and those in the U.S., here's a reminder of how we're familiar with a far wider and more progressive range of public policy choices: while we've seen plenty of discussion about improving the standard for retirement benefits available under our national pension plan (even if public support for that expansion has been ignored by a right-wing government), Duncan Black's call to do the same for Social Security is being raised as a voice in the wilderness:

If the consensus is that we need policies in place to ensure that the vast majority of people have at least a comfortable retirement, then we need to adjust our current failing policies. Expecting people to save sufficiently for their retirement, even if those savings are subsidized by our tax code, is unrealistic.

The 401(k) experiment has been a disaster, a disaster which threatens to doom millions to economic misery during the later years of their lives. Proposals to improve our system of private retirement savings -- even good ones -- will offer little to no help for the baby boomers who are currently nearing retirement, and are also unlikely to be of sufficient help for current younger workers. We need to increase Social Security benefits, now and in the future. It's the only realistic way to provide people with guaranteed economic security and comfort post-retirement.

- Chris Selley sums up the cynicism behind the Cons' latest attempts to make Canadian citizenship revocable:

They’re rarely subtle, these Tories. And they’ve perfected a brand of politics so unashamedly coarse, and so transparently manipulative, that it boggles the mind that anyone could be won over by it.

Take C-245, Calgary MP Devinder Shory’s private member’s bill — titled An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (honouring the Canadian Armed Forces) — which would strip Canadian citizenship of anyone who “engage[s] in an act of war against the Canadian Armed Forces,” provided he holds another passport.
...
There is no doubt such a law would be challenged in the courts, and the Conservatives wouldn’t give a fig if it lived or died. Regardless, assuming the opposition parties opposed the bill (which they had better), the Conservatives would have yet another dumb-dumb talking point. (“Do you support the Liberal-NDP-Bloc Québécois coalition’s soft-on-terrorism agenda?”) It would all cost millions, but hey, it’s not their millions. If the law dies, they can shrug and move on.
...
(I)f you gain citizenship legitimately, it’s yours unless you give it up. You have rights in Canada, and responsibilities to Canada; and Canada has a responsibility to you, including dealing with you if you blow up a bus in a faraway land. That’s the way it is, and the way it should be. The rest is just fundraising bait.

- Meanwhile, Chris Hall discusses how the bill would be designed to create two-tiered citizenship, with new Canadians left in a permanent state of limbo:

Canada doesn't have [wide-ranging authority to revoke citizenship]. (Nor does the U.S., unless citizenship was acquired by fraud.) And opponents say there are important policy reasons for that.

One is that the Shory bill, should it pass, would create two tiers of citizenship and so provide greater protection to people born in this country than those who choose to come here and become citizens.

Another is that the proposed changes would recognize only the privileges of becoming a naturalized citizen (like travelling on a Canadian passport, and having the opportunity to vote), and would not be a right that no government could take away.

As well, opponents argue that the two-tier approach violates Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees that every Canadian is entitled to equal treatment under the law.

- Michael Harris discusses the Cons' latest attempt to stifle scientific research.

- And finally, I can only hope John Ibbitson and Tasha Kheiriddin are right in suggesting that Stephen Harper's Senate end game involves abolishing the house of patronage. But I still strongly suspect it's something else entirely.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- On the anniversary of Jack Layton's death, Tim Harper points out how far the NDP has come in just a year, while Brian Topp highlights where the party still needs to go:

(W)hat to do about the federal government’s crisis of relevance? Recent Liberal and Conservative governments have worked together on a common agenda to make Canada’s national government largely irrelevant to the daily lives of most Canadians. Today’s federal government is a Parliament, it is a public service, it is an army and police force, and it is a largely unconditional bank machine for provinces.

Small wonder that Canadians increasing tune federal politics out. Small wonder Parliament in recent times has been about embarrassing squabbles over trivia. What else was there to talk about? Here is the fundamental mission of the New Democrats: to demonstrate that the Liberal/Conservatives are wrong, and that there are indeed important projects and priorities that Canadians can and should work on together. Not symbolic issues, designed to get us angry and to divide us from each other. The real stuff: Equality. Jobs. Health care. Economic security. The environment. Reclaiming our good name in in the world.

New Democrats need to find a way to give Canadians hope that we are more than the sum of our parts, and that there is much we can do together to make a good country a much better one – carefully and prudently, one practical step at a time, without reigniting the old federal-provincial wars that separatists and conservatives build on, each in their own special way

Meanwhile, John Ibbitson has a rather smaller vision for the NDP, suggesting that it should do nothing but accept the top-down, consumerist political style that's turned off so many voters. Ryan Cleary offers his own tribute, and Cityslikr challenges anybody who claims to respectfully disagree with Layton's proposals for greater generosity and equality to suggest some alternate means of building a better society.

- Mia Rabson rightly questions Elections Canada's lack of interest in prosecuting attempts at foreign influence on Canadian elections. And Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher report that even as Elections Canada directly intervenes to provide evidence useful to Ted Opitz's argument over Etobicoke Centre, it's withholding information which might be relevant to the Council of Canadians' challenges in seven other ridings.

- Edward Greenspan and Anthony Doob are almost entirely right in criticizing the Cons' attitude toward criminal law. But it's worth adding a proviso to the headline: the Cons' view is more along the lines of "once a criminal, always a criminal unless a Conservative", as the party is quick to offer absolution to anybody who's seen as politically useful.

- Finally, Matt Miller neatly sums up the mentality of "drawbridge Republicans":

(W)e’ve never had two wealthy candidates on a national ticket whose top priority is to reduce already low taxes on the well-to-do while raising taxes on everyone else — even as they propose to slash programs that serve the poor, or that (like college aid) create chances for the lowly born to rise.

Call them the Drawbridge Republicans. As the moniker implies, these are wealthy Republicans who have no qualms about pulling up the drawbridge behind them.
...
Most rich Republicans who champion regressive tax plans find it necessary to at least pretend they’re doing something to help average folks. John McCain, who’s lived large for decades thanks to his wife’s inheritance, famously had trouble keeping track of how many homes he owned — but McCain also tried bravely to create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. George W. Bush campaigned as a “compassionate conservative,” and touted education initiatives that made this claim plausible.

Today’s Drawbridge Republicans can’t be bothered. Yes, when their political back is to the wall — as Romney’s increasingly is — they’ll slap together a page of bullet points and dub it “a plan for the middle class.” But this is only under duress. The rest of the time they seem blissfully unaware of how off-key they sound.

Thursday Evening Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Robyn Allan notes that there's plenty of weakness in Christy Clark's position on the Gateway pipeline. But Barbara Yaffe writes that Clark has little choice but to stick to at least the requests she's made so far - and Vaughn Palmer points out that those alone may be enough to derail the project. And there figures to be little that shadowy committees of oil barons and Alberta and federal politicians can do to change that political reality in British Columbia.

- John Ibbitson and Janyce McGregor both discussed some fascinating Nanos polling on the gap between the issues Canadians consider most important, and those they think governments are actually able to address at the moment. But while the Cons may have cynically exploited the lowest-hanging fruit, there would seem to be a massive opportunity for anybody who can offer more credibility when it comes to health care, jobs and education.

- And a series of stories surrounding the anniversary of Jack Layton's death - along with a public discussion of the values of love, hope and optimism - would seem likely to help guide discussions toward what we can do.

- Finally, there's a noteworthy new source for information about Regina's municipal election candidates - including far more challengers for Council seats than I'd heard about so far.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Thomas Walkom criticizes the Cons' war on labour at the federal level - though John Ivison notes that the Cons' habit of interfering in every federal labour dispute looks to help the NDP all the more. And Pat Atkinson worries that the Sask Party is headed down a similarly destructive road in Saskatchewan.

- John Ibbitson recognizes why Thomas Mulcair's message on the environment and the economy has been well received by the Canadian public:

Mr. Mulcair accuses the Conservative government of failing to require oil and other natural resource companies to pay the full environmental cost of their operations, and would compel them to do so if the NDP came to power.

“It's about the enforcement of federal legislation,” he said. “Since the beginning, we've made it clear that we're very concerned that the federal government is not enforcing federal law.”

Mr. Mulcair's message is powerful, first and foremost because he believes it. He was saying it months ago, long before he won the leadership. Cynics forget the impact that a principled argument, passionately held, can have.

The NDP leader offers opponents of Stephen Harper a standard around which to rally. This is the first time that progressive forces have been able to put forward a leader and a message that offer such a compelling alternative to the Prime Minister and his conservative orthodoxy.

- And Tim Harper suggests that the Cons and their spokesflacks only look silly in demanding that the leader of the opposition stop doing his job:

Mulcair is a federal leader and, as such, he has the right — indeed, the obligation — to question federal environmental policies.

No matter how many times he is demonized from the West or across the aisle in the House of Commons, he is raising questions that call for mature debate, not comic book counterattacks from Conservatives who want to paint the nation in white hats and black hats.
...
The federal environmental record of this government is appalling; its own environmental commissioner said as much earlier this month.

“What I say with regard to sustainable development applies as much in New Brunswick as it does in British Columbia,’’ Mulcair said this week. “It’s a vision to include economic, social and environmental aspects every time the government takes a decision.’’

- But then, it may be inevitable that the Cons are out of touch with much of the country based on their divide-and-scare approach - which Frances Russell points out in her latest.

- Finally, David Climenhaga highlights tonight's Casserole Night in Canada as a chance for citizens to show they're not willing to be cut out of our political processes.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your day.

- Kayle Hatt's blog looks to be a must-read from here on in. And his post on what to draw from the latest polls is particularly worth a read:

Every poll that has been released since Thomas Mulcair was elected leader of the NDP has showed the NDP on an upward path but there was some debate about if that was just a ‘Honeymoon Blip’ or a new reality. While time will always be the final judge on political predictions, I’d suggest this poll (which has a large enough sample size to break down in depth) suggests a big shift is underway in the Canadian Political landscape.

The poll reports not just minor ‘across-the-board’ increases for Thomas Mulcair’s NDP but sizable shifts in key demographics than have historically trended more Conservative. If this was just a honeymoon, we would expect to see slight increases everywhere but not large swings. Large polling swings are hardly ever ‘blips’.

- John Ibbitson points out that the Cons' lack of an industrial strategy - and worse yet, their claim that catering to the whims of the oil sands is all the economic strategy Canada needs - has led to inevitable clashes between regions of the country. And PLG is duly incredulous that a province which has spent decades talking about building a wall around itself seems shocked that the rest of the country hasn't meekly agreed to abandon any hope of economic development for its sole benefit.

- Meanwhile, the Globe and Mail editorial board is the latest to recognize how worrisome it is that the Cons are determined to suppress the speech of anybody who doesn't share their cheerleading proclivities.

- Andre Picard chimes in on how the Cons' move to deprive refugee claimants of health care is as counterproductive as it is mean-spirited.

-  Finally, we can only hope John Ibbitson is right in speculating that the Cons' latest attempt at online surveillance legislation is indeed dead for now.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- The Cons' attacks on the environment and its defenders are starting to attract plenty of unwanted attention, with the Globe and Mail editorial board weighing in as the NDP, the other opposition parties and the environmental movement join forces to reject the utter demolition of environmental legislation.

- Meanwhile, the Mound of Sound comments on the Cons' complete lack of preparation for the inevitable consequences of pushing through a pipeline project without listening to the people concerned about their land and water.

- And Nathan Vanderklippe discusses the Cons' plan to suppress wages for Canadians by importing disposable immigrant workers.

- Finally, Carol Goar notes that the Cons are getting sloppy even on their own terms - which should offer reason for hope that we'll see some real change starting no later than 2015. And John Ibbitson recognizes that a contrast in interests and values between a government focused entirely on greasing the skids for the oil industry and a central Canadian electorate seeing its economy stagnate as a result figures to pose a great opportunity for the NDP.

Wednesday Evening Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Frances Russell comments on the Canada which the Harper Cons are determined to destroy. But the more important point looks to me to be less any theory of constitutionalism than the desire to have governments be as ineffective as possible at all levels:

Harper, the man who co-authored the infamous 2000 Alberta firewall letter, abhors the 1982 Canadian Constitution and its Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He is a strict constitutional constructionist. He believes in the Canada of Confederation in 1867 when Ottawa managed defence, foreign affairs, fisheries, the currency and penitentiaries and the provinces looked after matters of a local nature.

Unfortunately for Canadians, what were local matters 145 years ago now constitute government's biggest, most expensive and important programs -- health, education and social assistance. The notion that 10 provinces and three territories of vastly different size and wealth can be left to finance them on their own assisted by an equalization program whose future is now in doubt as it comes under increasing attack from the right, is simply a prescription for growing disparity -- and disunity.

It was all predictable. During his years with the libertarian National Citizens' Coalition, the prime minister seldom hid his disdain for Canada and Canadians. "Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status," he told the National Post in December 2000. In 1997, he asked an American audience not to "feel particularly bad" for Canada's unemployed. "They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance."

Most ominously in light of Thursday's budget, he told an NCC audience in 1994 that: "Whether Canada ends up with one national government or two governments or 10 governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country might be."

- If there's anything the Cons can abide less than public broadcasting, it's Rights and Democracy. Which is why the former is merely being cut, while the latter is meeting with a wrecking ball.

- Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne, Bruce Anderson and John Ibbitson tear into the Cons for their combination of deception and incompetence in continuing to push F-35s long after they should have been well aware their talking points were utterly nonsensical.

- Paul Wells comments on the hidden release of another report on Afghanistan as a symptom of all that's wrong with a government more focused on propagandizing than discussing what it's actually doing - and a media far too willing to play into that choice.

- Finally, Murray Mandryk notes that while the Cons can never expect the facts to be on their side, they can usually expect the Wall government to come to their rescue in the PR department.

Leadership 2012 Roundup

With the NDP's leadership campaign entering its final week, it's no great surprise to see plenty more punditry than usual surrounding the race. But what might influence the ballots cast this week (which may end up making all the difference)?

- The most attention over the last day or so has gone to Doris Layton's letter in support of Brian Topp - which certainly offers a stronger and more sentimental appeal than a lot of the other late-campaign messages. But given that her endorsement had already been announced, I'm far from convinced the latest appeal will make all that much difference - no matter how well-worded.

- Bill Tieleman offers his theory as to how Peggy Nash can win the leadership. And T.C. Norris provides similar analysis of the relative positioning of the candidates, albeit leading to a conclusion that Thomas Mulcair is likely to emerge victorious.

- Tim Harper wonders whether Mulcair's opponents have helped pave his path to victory by not coordinating with each other's camps. And in particular, I'll note that the work the campaigns have done to encourage advance ballots aimed at a single candidate (or limited number of them) may make it easier for an early leader to hold on in a multiple-ballot vote.

- John Ibbitson declares Mulcair a shoo-in before offering a warning about undue certainty in prediction:

(A Cullen win) remains the least-unlikely alternative to the much-more likely victory by Mr. Mulcair. Your correspondent is as certain of this as he was in October, 2007, that Hillary Clinton would win the Democratic presidential nomination.

- Ish Theilheimer looks to sum up the differences between the leadership candidates. And John Baglow sorts out a four-candidate top tier.

- Finally, Mulcair offered a stronger rebuttal than usual to the suggestion he'd want to move the NDP to the right:

(Topp) has repeatedly said that Mulcair's vision for modernizing the party would move the party over to the centre.

But in a french-language interview with Radio-Canada's Sunday political flagship program Les Coulisses du Pouvoir, Mulcair said he has never used that expression.

"Others have used it for me, and attributed it to me," he said.

"What I have said from the start, however, is we have to bring the centre towards the NDP," specified Mulcair, who sees a distinction between the two positions.

- Which is for the best, since Frank Graves points out why the NDP looks to be in a strong position in building toward 2015:

Mr. Graves said he believes, based on his polling trends and contrary to the view held in red Liberal territory, that the NDP has shown, leaderless as it has been and with most of its star frontbenchers out of House action since October, that its success last year was not “an ephemeral blip propelled by the charismatic authority of Jack Layton.”

Mr. Graves posed that it is because, underneath the effect Mr. Layton’s leadership and strategic success in Quebec had, there have been dramatic subterranean shifts in Canada’s voting population in the past five years, which in the broader international sense, have also been reflected by the post-recession upheaval over the mushrooming gap between the poor and the rich.

“It is the increasing ideological fragmentation of the Canadian electorate, but also new sort of splits on, I’m not sure another term captures it as well, basically class conflicts. The new dominant issue that we see, but which nobody else is talking about, what the Americans are noting as the new number one issue, is income inequality,” said Mr. Graves.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- In the surest sign yet that the Robocon scandal involved a calculated decision by political operatives rather than having anything to do with mere overzealous volunteers, the Star reports that call centre staff hired by the Cons to perform live calling actually tried to correct the false information supplied to them by the party. [Update: And Susan Delacourt rightly zeroes in on the script as a major piece of the puzzle.] Meanwhile, Exigenomicon distinguishes between the two scams at play; Scott wonders whether there's any prospect of outright dismissing Stephen Harper from office; the Star, John Ibbitson and Michael Den Tandt all say that however much Harper tried to insulate himself from the fraud itself, he'll bear full responsibility if he tries in the slightest to cover up or deflect from the scandal; and Lawrence Martin fits the electoral fraud in with the Cons' pattern of behaviour.

- Meanwhile, the revelation that the Cons may not have won a valid mandate in the first place should surely lead to far more question about their legitimacy in trying to ram harmful legislation through Parliament. And Danny Graham suggests that their omnibus dumb-on-crime bill would be a great place to start with some serious debate.

- Michael Geist points out that online surveillance involves some intersection between a government which wants to be able to intrude on citizens' privacy without accountability, and private-sector profiteers who see the potential to make money off of state-mandated snooping. Which is just one more reason we should be glad to know the Cons are running scared on the issue.

- Finally, Michael Marin and Anouk Dey note that greater equality serves as an important part of encouraging the education and innovation that all parties see as necessary to our future economic development. And Ricardo Fernholz and Robert Fernholz contemplate the need for ongoing equalization to counteract a natural tendency toward the concentration of wealth.

Friday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Friday reading.

- Jim Stanford points out that free trade hasn't delivered any productivity gains as promised - and has in fact moved Canada further away from the model that's working elsewhere:

The famous Macdonald Commission, influenced heavily by market-oriented economic analysis, made two core recommendations in this regard. Canada’s social welfare programs should be rationalized to reinforce labour market discipline. And we should pursue comprehensive free trade with the U.S., to expose our firms to the full force of competition and eliminate our remaining 10-per-cent productivity disadvantage. The proposals were fiercely debated, but in the end implemented. The Macdonald Commission’s 1985 report heralded a new era of economic rationalism; it might be less “compassionate” than previous policy frameworks, but would surely deliver the productivity goods via the invisible hand of a freed market.

The graph that accompanies this article starkly illustrates the ironic results. No sooner had the Macdonald Commission helped spur a historic turn in Canadian policy, than Canada’s relative productivity began to fade. The more social programs were curtailed, the more we faced global competition, the more sectors were deregulated, and the deeper taxes were cut, the worse Canada’s productivity performance became. Today we’re right back where we started: poor cousins again, with business sector productivity equal to only 70 per cent of U.S. levels, and still sinking.

In terms of innovation, our performance has been even worse: lagging far behind the U.S. and most of the industrialized world. As we focus on extracting and exporting ever-more unprocessed minerals, our capacity to develop innovative products, services, and processes for the world has withered away.
...
Indeed, the experience of most successful industrializing countries in recent decades suggests a very different idea of how innovation, productivity, and export-led growth actually occur. From Korea to Finland, China to the Netherlands, Brazil to Germany, countries which actively direct and manage growth seem to perform better in productivity, innovation, and global trade. These countries have fostered investment and innovation with focused sector strategies; deliberately favourable capital market, exchange rate, and trade policies; and sophisticated efforts to manage income distribution so that productivity growth visibly translates into higher living standards (unlike Canada where there is no longer any visible link between productivity growth and personal incomes). Intellectual support for the effectiveness of those approaches is provided by recent new thinking in development economics, highlighting the central role of a proactive “developmental state” in attaining qualitative and quantitative economic progress, rather then reifying market forces.

- Meanwhile, Ezra Klein points out how tax expenditures - preferred by the Cons and other anti-government parties as a means of handing out money without creating any corresponding social institutions - are both less effective and more dangerous than direct spending.

- And Andrew Jackson notes that even the IMF doesn't buy the rhetoric of budget hawks anymore, warning that misplaced austerity may do as much damage to bond markets just as it does to workers.

- pogge rightly suggests that Peter MacKay's use of defence resources for political purposes would serve as a resignation-worthy offence for any minister with the slightest sense of responsibility.

- Finally, following up on John Ibbitson's column today, Alison gives a clear-cut example of the Cons encouraging exactly the kind of wink-wink, nudge-nudge attitude toward political deception that led to the newly-named Robocon.

Friday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to end your week.

- Sure, it's a plus to know that Canada's military is ready and willing to leap into action to protect what matters most to the government of the day. Now if only that meant something other than serving as political operatives to protect the Harper Cons' interests.

- Which is to say that the breaking robocall scandal is far from the only example of the Cons' anything-you-can-get-away-with mentality pointed out by John Ibbitson:

(I)t is certainly true the Tories push their campaign tactics to the edge of legality and sometimes beyond. They pleaded guilty last year to violating federal election laws in 2006 with their “in-and-out” scheme to fund the national campaign with money laundered through local campaign accounts.

And they may have instilled such an intensely partisan anything-you-can-get-away-with mentality among their campaign workers that one or more of them concluded it would be okay to cross the line of legality.

Political parties can’t be held responsible for the actions of rogue supporters. But they can he held accountable for creating environments that produce those rogues.

This is a mirror into which Stephen Harper and everyone who works for him should be looking.

- Meanwhile, Carol Goar slams Jason Kenney for ignoring what had been a reasonable set of compromises and accommodations developed in the previous Parliament to force through a bill designed to unduly restrict Canada's refugee system.

- Andrew Jackson points out how Andrew Coyne's attempt to dismiss Paul Krugman's economic prescription falls flat:

(A)s any reader of Krugman’s blog knows, he has acknowledged that a very modest US recovery is underway, while pointing out that the US economy is still operating well below its potential growth path.

He argues – incessantly – that the US economy needs additional stimulus if that gap is to be closed, and he has never argued that the first stimulus package had no effect, only that it was far too small to promote a meaningful recovery.

So there is absolutely no contradiction between what Krugman has argued and the fact of a very tepid US recovery.

Coyne goes on to side with the Fraser Institute argument that fiscal stimulus in Canada had no impact – an argument that has been thoroughly debunked by neutral economists such as Serge Coulombe...

- And given my own interest in chronicling what happens in Parliament, I'll readily note that it's worth reading about Elizabeth May's vigil in the House of Commons.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Heather Scoffield gives far too much credence to the Cons' spin on what their focus group results mean. But her report offers what may be the most definitive indication yet that the Cons' ideology bears absolutely no resemblance to what Canadians actually want:

The report says respondents were generally supportive of the government's deficit-reduction efforts, but were somewhat skeptical of the government's time frame. They were also adamant that deficit reduction should not be at the cost of funding for health care.

They showed little appetite for more tax cuts.

- Meanwhile, Michael Goldberg, Steve Kerstetter and Seth Klein point out another attempt by the Cons to redefine away the real issue of poverty in Canada.

- The Cons' online surveillance legislation has given rise to plenty of backlash, with John Ibbitson, the Vancouver Province and Lawrence Martin all weighing in. And Sarah Schmidt catches the Cons trying to politicize their bill on the fly.

- Finally, Marc Laferriere sums up the impact of Romeo Saganash on the NDP's leadership race - and his anticipated role in the years to come.