On continued control

I'd certainly be interested to see some evidence that Conservative MPs are doing anything more than dispensing party talking points. But while there may be some better examples available, the contents of Jason Warick's report this morning look to me to fall far short.

Let's go point by point...

- At last notice, Con MPs weren't allowed to present private members' bills which hadn't been vetted by Harper's staffers. And from the fact the Cons are publicly lining up behind Rob Clarke's bill to trash the Indian Act with nothing to replace it (as well as the fact that it fits with the Cons' explicit government legislation), it's a stretch to claim C-428 as a sign of rebellion.

- It's absolutely true that the Cons are trying to distance themselves from Kelly Block since her anti-refugee mailout started giving rise to protests. But if you can find an inch of daylight between the talking points that have been rightly protested by Block's constituents and the ones dispensed by Jason Kenney and others as the Cons' party-approved excuse for slashing refugee health care, you're a more creative thinker than I.

- And Warick's final example - that of Gerry Ritz - looks to me like a signal of business as usual rather than any noteworthy development. The XL Foods beef fiasco is nothing new for a minister who's presided over this type of health and safety disaster before. Yet Ritz continues to be a member of Harper's cabinet charged with overseeing Canada's food production - meaning that his actions and words are plainly those of Harper's government, not an example of an individual MP at odds with his boss.

(Though I'll grant that if Ritz wanted to make the case against his party's belief in industry self-regulation by secretly sabotaging the industry for which he's responsible, he could hardly have done better.)

Which means that Warick's list is quickly pared down to a brief outburst by anti-abortion MPs. But Harper has always allowed socons to have their occasional day in the spotlight as long as they keep up the trained-seal routine on other issues.

So no, we don't have much reason to think the Cons' Saskatchewan MPs are exercising any real independence. And we should be careful not to be too generous with the label - lest Harper manage to claim he isn't being unduly controlling based on an erroneous interpretation of what Con MPs are actually doing.

[Edit: fixed typo, added link.]

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Crawford Kilian talks to Ed Broadbent about the effect of increasing inequality and the prospect of changing course:

On how quickly things could turn around:

"I'd like to see a strategic plan. We can't change overnight after 20 years. We could take a series of measures; B.C., for example, has an affordable housing problem. The Trudeau government brought in a mix of public and private measures for such problems, but it took time. A hike in the minimum wage would help. Currently the federal government sets its wages on provincial levels, instead of setting its own levels. We also see the evidence of other advanced countries: more equality means a more productive economy. Germany, Sweden and Norway all have productivity levels equal to ours or higher."

On the least understood aspect of inequality:

"Inequality is bad for everyone, including the rich. Americans in the top three per cent have health outcomes worse than those in Sweden and the Netherlands. Such negative effects on the whole society aren't understood. With equality, everyone does better. Also, a more equal society benefits middle-class Canadians -- stronger pensions, lower crime rates, fewer teen pregnancies, and so on. The evidence shows the U.S. is way down in social mobility. The poor in equal societies have better chances than they do in the U.S."

- Meanwhile, David Fraser reports on Kirk Englot's work as to how Saskatchewan can reduce poverty - if we choose to make that a public policy priority.

- Toby Sanger notes that part of Dalton McGuinty's legacy will be the choice to hide savings from lower interest rates - with the apparent purpose of taking a larger bite out of Ontario workers than he could possibly justify if it were honest about the province's fiscal situation:

(T)he Ontario government will be able to save an additional $5 billion from lower borrowing costs over the next five years as a result of lower interest rates than they had forecasted in their 2012 budget.  By a surprising coincidence, these savings are almost identical to the amounts that they can be expected to save from their wage freeze legislation.  (Perhaps that’s why these interest savings weren’t acknowledged in their fall Statement.)

These savings are similar to what they expect to save from the two year wage freeze on public sector workers imposed through their Orwellian-sounding Protecting Public Services Act.

This means the Ontario government could reach its deficit targets without imposing these public sector wage freezes, which will dampen wage growth all around and slow down the economy, thereby reducing revenue growth. Even the IMF recently warned governments not to unnecessarily cut spending and impose austerity measures as this is leading to slow economic growth.

- Murray Mandryk rightly tears into Con MP Kelly Block for her publicly-funded anti-immigrant mailout.

- Finally, Sean Tucker and Andrew Stevens point out the inevitable end result if one accepts the Cons' spin as to why unions should be forced to make their membership matters the subject of public scrutiny:

Bill C-377, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act (labour organizations), if passed, would require unions to publically disclose an unprecedented amount of financial and other information about their activities on the Canadian Revenue Agency’s website. Not surprisingly C-377 is opposed by organized labour who see it as principally anti-union. However, in the face of such criticism, the bill’s sponsor has argued that “If there is an ideology, it is based on the principle that organizations that receive public benefits should be accountable to disclose how they use those benefits.” According to Heibert, the primary public benefit enjoyed by unions is that their members can deduct dues from their personal income, thus depriving the public treasury of over $400 million of dollars in lost revenue.

Mr. Heibert’s public benefit argument is problematic for several reasons. Many businesses receive substantial direct and indirect benefits through the Income Tax Act and other federal government programs but disclose little or no information to the public. If Hiebert’s chief motivation is to ensure the financial accountability of organizations that benefit from taxpayer supported initiatives, why restrict C-377 to trade unions? Why not extend this transparency model to private businesses and professional associations? An MP inspired by accountability, and not an anti-union animus, should settle for nothing less.

Imagine a medium-sized engineering firm that receives any of the following federal government benefits: $5,000 to subsidize the salaries of post-secondary graduates under the federal Youth Employment Program, $35,000 for eligible research and development activities under the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) Tax Incentive Program, or $50,000 under the Canadian Innovation Commercialization Program. These are all part of the government’s Economic Action Plan. The business equivalent of Heibert’s law would require this firm to publicly disclose senior management salaries and all transactions over $5,000, with both the payer and payee being identified. But, the extent of accountability would reach even further under Hiebert’s bill.

Though C-377 references the level of financial transparency required of registered charities as a model, the bill demands far more information. For example, the government would define and require reporting on over a dozen categories of business-related activities and require senior managers to report on all political and lobbying activities. The costs associated with reporting, of course, would be borne by the business and non-compliance would result in a fine of $1,000 per day. And, because the scope of disclosure mandated by C-377 is not proportional to the size of the public benefit, all businesses would be treated equally. All of this would be taking place as business associations are lobbying for fewer government regulations.

New column day

Here, on how the mixed-riding proposal of Saskatchewan's federal electoral boundaries commission offers at least some improvement over the current all-rurban mess when it comes to recogizing communities of interest.

For further reading...
- Joe Couture covers both the initial proposal, and reactions from parties and academics.
- Kelly Block's acknowledgment that rural voters in Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar would represent her margin of victory can be found here.
- And again, anybody interested in participating in next month's public hearings should sign up here.

Wednesday Morning Links

Content goes here.

- Scott Stinson is the latest to note that the Libs' sudden concern for health care looks to have been fabricated solely for campaign consumption:

In the month of March, which ended with the dissolution of Parliament, the Liberal party asked many questions about tax rates, election financing and ethics. It asked questions about prisons, Bev Oda, the CBC and the Champlain Bridge. It asked questions about the environment, child care and fighter jets.

It did not ask any questions about health-care funding.

The same is true of February: zero questions about health care, save for a couple here and there that asked why the government wasn’t rushing to hold clinical trials for the controversial “Liberation” treatment for multiple sclerosis.

It’s a record that is tough to square with the Liberals’ newfound zeal for health care, the latest evidence of which was an announcement on Tuesday that former prime minster Jean Chrétien would join leader Michael Ignatieff on the campaign trail “as the Liberal team shares the Liberal commitment to protect universal public health care.” That statement came just a few hours after Bob Rae and two other Liberal candidates held a press conference in Ottawa to accuse the Conservatives of plotting to slash health-care funding in order to balance future budgets.

But if the Liberals had always intended to make this long-awaited election about health care, they sure took their sweet time getting around to it. The NDP asked at least 10 questions about health care in the House in the past few months, from the sanctity of the Canada Health Act to the need for drug coverage to, er, bedbugs.
...
The Liberal party position as the only champion of public health would be just a touch easier to buy if its platform included anything about long-term funding other than a mushy promise to be “at the table for Canadians” when negotiating an extension to the 2004 deal with the provinces. Quality would be improved, costs would be contained, pressure on families would be relieved. Possibly pixie dust would be involved.

Mr. Ignatieff has been Liberal leader for more than two years, and he’s never said much about long-term health-care funding until now. But it seems to be the message he has chosen to try to revive a waning campaign. The question is, is it too late for the defibrillator?

- The Star calls for an end to the treatment of elected MPs like potted plants:

MPs of all political stripes ought to stand up for themselves – and, more importantly, their constituents. In a minority government situation, where a party needs each and every vote, MPs may find they have more power than they realize to effect the positive changes they feel they were elected to do. The parties – so eager to blame their rivals for turning Parliament into a gong show – should look themselves in the mirror. They need to examine how they choose candidates, and the kind of discipline they enforce once MPs get to Ottawa.

- Ho-hum, just another story about the public face of the Prime Minister's Office trying to arm-twist an independent organization into hiring the Cons' choice of chairs, then falsely denying that he so much as had any contact with the group involved. No need for ministerial responsibility here.

- Also, under-the-table cash payments to cleaners at 24 Sussex Drive. Move along, nothing to see here.

- Finally, Wheatsheaf points out the sad excuse for a response from Kelly Block when the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting asked about her position on funding the CBC:

Deep thought

We really can't trust these irresponsible Conservatives with sensitive information, can we?