Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Andray Domise discusses both the U.S.' choice to be an intentionally unsafe destination for refugees, and Canada's complicity in validating that choice and other policies of dehumanization rather than speaking out against even such obvious abuses as the imprisonment of children. And the Canadian Labour Congress calls for Canada to live up to its responsibility to refugees by stopping the classification of the U.S. as a "safe third country".

- Alan Broadbent and Kevin Page write about the need to recognize and give effect to the right to housing as a step toward eliminating homelessness in Canada. And Geoff Dembicki reports on Gary McKenna's research showing the influence of developers in Vancouver as a prime example as to how the greed of the wealthy few has taken precedence over the needs of the many.

- Meanwhile, Catherine McIntyre exposes the continued presence of discriminatory ads for housing and other services on social media platforms.

- John Arlidge reviews Richard Brooks' Bean Counters as to the role of major accounting firms in consolidating corporate power.

- Finally, Andrew Jackson discusses the inevitable reality that Doug Ford's anti-social populism will only make matters worse for many of the voters who elected him.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Joe Romm discusses new research showing that man-made greenhouse gas emissions have ended an 11,000-year era of climate stability.

- Thomas Walkom points out the contradictions in Justin Trudeau's declaration that there will be no federal climate policy without new pipelines. And David Climenhaga writes about the complete lack of any sustainable climate plan from the corporations profiting the most from the tar sands, while Kevin Orland reports that they're also putting off the work needed to remediate tailings ponds and otherwise clean up the damage already done to Alberta's environment.

- Meanwhile, James Wilt notes that a consensus against offshore drilling off the coast of Nova Scotia was apparently given no weight by the Libs as they decided to allow BP to drill oil wells. And Robert Cribb's report on the dangers of an unknown gas in Unity causing headaches and other health problems seems to have been needed for the provincial government to even acknowledge that anything was happening.

- Mariana Mazzucato and Gregor Semieniuk discuss the importance of actually shaping the economy through public policy and government investment, not merely treating government's role as one of fixing a system controlled by the corporate sector.

- Finally, Helaina Gaspard and Kevin Page offer some suggestions to ensure that the public has some say in Canada's federal budget process - both in having proposals included in budgets, and being able to track their progress.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- John Quiggin examines - and refutes - a few key complaints about fairer taxes on the wealthy. But Kathryn May reports that the Cons are eager to use public resources to investigate and punish public servants who have exposed the problems with the Canada Revenue Agency, rather than lifting a finger to actually bring in needed revenue.

- The Canadian Labour Congress makes the case to expand the Canada Pension Plan to ensure a secure retirement for all Canadian workers. And James Fitz-Morris reports that the Saskatchewan Party's constant obstruction doesn't look like it will stand in the way of an enhanced CPP.

- Kevin Page, Pat Martin and Bob Plamondon argue that we need Parliament to reassert control over the use of public money. And the Star-Phoenix rightly questions the fact that the Sask Party continues to withhold the information needed to assess big-money P3 projects, while hiding behind the consultants who make their money off the industry.

- Jim Bronskill reports on the Libs' noises about a long-overdue review of federal access to information legislation - though of course there's a massive difference between making promises and following through. And on that front, Tom Parkin highlights a few of the promises which are already being left in the rear-view mirror - with a common theme that the Libs' claims to progressive values have been quickly abandoned.

- Finally, Doug Saunders writes that while the words may have changed, the theme of racial prejudice is still far too widespread.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Edward Keenan writes that a lack of affordable child care is the crucial financial pressure facing families across the income spectrum. And Michael Wolfson discusses the dangers of talking about taxes in a vacuum without recognizing what we lose by failing to make sure everybody pays a fair share.

- Sam Thielman notes that the Trans-Pacific Partnership's crackdown on intellectual property may seriously threaten our freedom of expression, while Michael Geist highlights the potential for content-blocking and the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out how the TPP transfers massive amounts of power to rightsholders over citizens. And Doug Bolton reports on the recognition that the TPP's restrictions on access to medications will cost lives, while Scott Sinclair takes a closer look at the impact on Canada.

- Meanwhile, Aaron Gluck Thaler highlights a new student movement to fight against C-51 and other unwarranted intrusions on privacy.

- BJ Siekierski and James Munson (with Kevin Page's help) examine how the Harper Cons have trashed Canada's civil service without any idea of the consequences, then covered their tracks for a future government to try to retrace.

- Sara Jerving, Katie Jennings, Masako Melissa Hirsch and Susanne Rust write that Exxon engaged in a campaign of public climate denial even as its own researchers knew perfectly well that its business was damaging our planet - and outright welcomed that prospect to the extent it might make Arctic reserves more easily accessible.

- Finally, Karl Nerenberg offers his take on talking about the federal election around the Thanksgiving dinner table - rightly noting that the similarities between the NDP and Lib platforms on some (if not all) points don't represent a reason to ignore the parties' histories and values.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Kevin Page points out a few of the issues which should be on the table when Canada's finance ministers meet next week:

Our finance ministers are smart. They know that faster growth is going to require higher investment rates and sustainable public finances. But the reality is that Canada is falling down on capital investments in both the private and public sectors. Business capital investment has grown a weak 2 per cent over the past two years. That is not boosting the investment rate. Meanwhile, government capital investment has declined 2 per cent over the same period, and that is after the 2009-10 fiscal stimulus. This is not a recipe for boosting growth.

Why do we continue to pursue an approach that stunts growth now and for the future? Is this public sector mismanagement? Or, is this an effort to achieve a balanced budget that allows for spending on current goods or services (for my generation that votes) at the cost of capital goods for future generations (our children and grandchildren that do not yet vote)?
...
The austerity approach set out in the 2012 federal budget will succeed in generating a balanced budget, but at a cost: slower growth and degraded public services like support for veterans. Meanwhile, the government is responding to its improved fiscal situation not by raising the investment rate, but by cutting taxes further.

Analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office (and Finance Canada) indicates that the federal fiscal structure is sustainable. This is largely because Ottawa has reduced the growth escalator on health transfers, downloading the problem to the provinces. Provincial governments, already struggling under increased pressure caused by slow growth, have a long-term fiscal gap they will have to address.

Given all of these challenges, the finance ministers’ meeting ought to be a pivotal moment. The temptation to focus primarily on oil prices must be avoided. If we want economic growth to raise incomes, address inequalities and ensure essential public services, we are going to have to raise the investment rate in Canada. There’s no other way.

- And Andrew Jackson notes that even our mediocre economy of the past few years has relied on unsustainable household-level debt to make up for government neglect:

Younger households on modest incomes are often highly stretched financially, have little or no equity in their homes, are often carrying high levels of credit card debt, and are saving very little for retirement. When housing prices fall and/or interest rates rise, they will be highly vulnerable

By contrast, to households, non financial corporations are in rude financial health, and have been net lenders to the rest of the economy in recent years. Credit market debt of non financial corporations is 58% of business equity, a ratio which has been stable for a decade, and these corporations are currently sitting on $656 billion of cash or what former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney referred to as “dead money.”

While the Bank of Canada has consistently said it hopes to see a “rotation” of demand from households to corporate investment, household debt continues to rise, driven by low interest rates and generally stagnant incomes. CIBC Economics has noted a recent acceleration of consumer borrowing.

As the old saying goes, when something cannot go on forever, it won't. Households cannot continue to borrow so as to spend more than they earn, and house prices cannot rise indefinitely compared to incomes.

We risk a major shock to the economy when the day of reckoning arrives, not least because business investment is unlikely to grow rapidly at a time when household demand is weak.

Some part of the economy, be it households, corporations or governments, has to be borrowing at any given time so as to put savings to use and to maintain overall demand. If households are stretched and business are reluctant investors, it will be up to government to save us from a downturn through increased public investment.

- But Thomas Walkom discusses Stephen Harper's stubborn consistency in remaining out of touch with Canadians - a pattern which includes handing out tax baubles rather than developing an economic policy that actually benefits workers. And Louise Elliott offers another important example of the principle, as the Cons are approving Microsoft's plan to drive down wages and avoiding hiring Canadians by rubber-stamping a request for hundreds of temporary foreign workers.

- Branko Milanovic observes that Russia offers a particularly stark example as to how free-market dogmatism led to both a destructive giveaway of public assets, and a corrupted form of corporatism afterward. But unfortunately, Robert Benzie reports that the Ontario Libs are just one of many current governments following the same path.

- Finally, Larry Savage and Stephanie Ross comment on the need for a united labour front in working to replace the Harper Cons and other reactionary governments with progressive alternatives.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Mitchell Anderson compares the results of corporate-friendly Thatcherism to the alternative of public resource ownership and development in the interest of citizens - and finds far better results arising from the latter:

Thirty-five years after she swept to power as British prime minister, it is ironic that socialist Norway now has $830 billion in the bank and enjoys fully funded social programs that most of us can only dream of. Meanwhile the U.K. is enduring another round of wrenching austerity and owes over £1.3 trillion -- about US$2.2 trillion. That massive debt grows by about $3.8 billion each week, while every seven days Norway adds another billion dollars to their bank account.

What happened? Both countries were in dire economic straights in early 1970s. Both countries came into the financial windfall of North Sea oil around the same time, exploiting the same resource -- sometimes from the same drill rig. How could they have ended up in such vastly different places?

Rarely in history has there been such a clear-cut opportunity to explore the real world success or failure of competing world-views. Thatcherism has gone on to become an economic school of thought with true believers in positions of power around the world. The doctrine of cutting taxes, privatizing government assets and embracing deregulation continues apace around the globe to this day. But does it work?
...
Wealth flows from resources, and the North Sea oil represented $8 trillion of public money. Realistic governments see resource development as a hard-nosed negotiation with their private business partners. They aggressively fight for their taxpayers against outside interests who naturally want to keep as much of that money as they can for themselves. Norway did a far more competent job managing their oil wealth than the naive ideologues in the U.K. The numbers speak for themselves.

- But Alison points out that Canada is instead heading toward increasing domination by private-sector oil barons - with the Cons passing the oil lobby's wishlist without even a hint of public interest entering into the discussion, and Justin Trudeau joining Stephen Harper in putting oil lobbyists at the core of his political team.

- Meanwhile, Hugh Mackenzie studies the retirement options available to Canadians, and finds that the CPP provides a far more secure source of income without upwards of a third of one's savings being siphoned off by the financial sector. And PressProgress nicely summarizes Mackenzie's findings.

- A group of political science experts writes to suggest that the Cons not ram through their Unfair Elections Act without considering the public interest - both in making voting more rather than less accessible, and in thoroughly considering the effect of unnecessary, partisan-driven changes. And the Star's editorial board agrees.

- Finally, David Beers interviews Kevin Page about the Cons' "grotesquely wrong" priorities:

Some scientists say federal libraries and other valuable infrastructure for making decisions is being unnecessarily destroyed in the name of budget cutting, but the real goal is to silence sources of environmental criticism. The Tyee has followed the story closely, for example here. Do you think the Harper government has used budget cutting as an excuse to achieve other political aims including undercutting the work of scientists whose findings could be cited by critics of the government's policies?

"I am deeply concerned about the lack of transparency, analysis and debate on the choices and impact of government programs and operations that are being eliminated and scaled back in the name deficit reduction. This includes reductions in spending to support information and knowledge at Environment Canada, Statistics Canada and elsewhere. The government created a structural deficit problem when it cut the GST and corporate income taxes too deeply with respect to our fiscal structure and long-term economic and demographic fundamentals. It is now trying to reduce a structural deficit while our economy continues to operate below its potential. It launched an austerity program in Budget 2012 without a plan for Parliament to scrutinize.

"PBO tried to get information on the cuts in advance of decisions to scale back science and veterans support etc. but were told by the public service and cabinet ministers that we were exceeding our legislative mandate. PBO sought a reference opinion at the Federal Court on this issue. There should be a plan in place to explain to Parliament and Canadians the choices and impact analysis on the cuts. This plan does not exist. The system is broken. MPs are voting on departmental spending plans without the information they need to assess austerity impacts. We are closing veterans offices in the name of efficiency but spending more on recreation trails. MPs should debate these issues.

"One of my favourite writers, Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, wrote a piece a few weeks ago about the state of leadership. He said we 'have high quality people but weak leadership.' He said we have an implicit pact with our elites. We want them to do their best and at least get things 'partly right,' not 'grotesquely wrong.' I fear that on the management of our institutions and on the long-term issue of climate change our elites are grotesquely wrong. We should be increasing investments in environmental research, not decreasing."

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Leo Panitch reminds us that the term "reform" was once understood to represent efforts to bolster the public interest against unbridled market forces - and suggests it's well past time to take the word back from the business interests who have turned it into just the opposite. 

- Paul Krugman comments on the twin myths of the undeserving poor and the deserving rich. And Sam Polk writes from experience about the mindset that drives money addicts to demand that others' basic needs give way to their desire to accumulate:

I’d always looked enviously at the people who earned more than I did; now, for the first time, I was embarrassed for them, and for me. I made in a single year more than my mom made her whole life. I knew that wasn’t fair; that wasn’t right. Yes, I was sharp, good with numbers. I had marketable talents. But in the end I didn’t really do anything. I was a derivatives trader, and it occurred to me the world would hardly change at all if credit derivatives ceased to exist. Not so nurse practitioners. What had seemed normal now seemed deeply distorted.

I had recently finished Taylor Branch’s three-volume series on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, and the image of the Freedom Riders stepping out of their bus into an infuriated mob had seared itself into my mind. I’d told myself that if I’d been alive in the ‘60s, I would have been on that bus.

But I was lying to myself. There were plenty of injustices out there — rampant poverty, swelling prison populations, a sexual-assault epidemic, an obesity crisis. Not only was I not helping to fix any problems in the world, but I was profiting from them. During the market crash in 2008, I’d made a ton of money by shorting the derivatives of risky companies. As the world crumbled, I profited. I’d seen the crash coming, but instead of trying to help the people it would hurt the most — people who didn’t have a million dollars in the bank — I’d made money off it. I don’t like who you’ve become, my girlfriend had said years earlier. She was right then, and she was still right. Only now, I didn’t like who I’d become either.

Wealth addiction was described by the late sociologist and playwright Philip Slater in a 1980 book, but addiction researchers have paid the concept little attention. Like alcoholics driving drunk, wealth addiction imperils everyone. Wealth addicts are, more than anybody, specifically responsible for the ever widening rift that is tearing apart our once great country. Wealth addicts are responsible for the vast and toxic disparity between the rich and the poor and the annihilation of the middle class. Only a wealth addict would feel justified in receiving $14 million in compensation — including an $8.5 million bonus — as the McDonald’s C.E.O., Don Thompson, did in 2012, while his company then published a brochure for its work force on how to survive on their low wages. Only a wealth addict would earn hundreds of millions as a hedge-fund manager, and then lobby to maintain a tax loophole that gave him a lower tax rate than his secretary.

- Susan Delacourt theorizes that Twitter is becoming the defining communication mechanism for political leaders. And Konrad Yakabuski writes about the dark side of detailed political data collection - as the same information which can help parties reach supporters may also be used to target non-supporters for punishment and exclusion if there's no mechanism to test how it's used.

- Finally, Kevin Page suggests that we won't be able to make any progress in dealing with economic and social issues without first ensuring that our political system functions to serve the public interest rather than its own:

Income inequality is increasing in Canada and international comparisons put us well behind many European countries. The richest 1 per cent in Canada earns about 10.5 per cent of income, up from about 7 per cent some 30 years ago. About 9 per cent of our population lives in poverty, including some 570,000 of our children. Without aggressive action, these numbers are bound to get worse, not better.

Canadians have also added a lot of debt to our balance sheets. The ratio of household financial liabilities to household disposable income now sits at a record high 166 per cent, compared to 110 per cent in 2000. And as Canadians try to pay off this increased debt, inevitably consumption will further decrease, adding to more economic drift or stagnation.

So how do we get out of this dangerous spiral? One thing is clear: we cannot overcome the pressing economic challenges before us without the concerted effort of our government institutions. And yet in the wake of a year of scandal, those institutions are more distracted and less able to help than ever before.

The Prime Minister will not stand accountable for the actions of his own office. The Senate has lost trust over a spending scandal. The House of Commons has lost its power of the purse. Members of Parliament are forced to vote on appropriations without the information they need. The public service has become dangerously good at avoiding transparency and accountability.

Without rebuilding — and rebuilding trust in — the bodies charged with protecting our prosperity and democracy, we will continue to drift aimlessly, to put off the thinking we must put off no longer.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Bea Vongdouangchanh reports on Kevin Page's concerns that the Cons are set to effectively destroy the PBO. And the Star's editorial board slams Stephen Harper's war against transparency and accountability in general:

Stonewalling, foot-dragging and contempt for Parliament pay. At least that’s what the federal government appears to have concluded in the wake of the 2011 election. Toppled two years ago after being found in contempt of Parliament for failing to disclose fiscal information, the Conservatives were nonetheless rewarded in the polls with a majority government — a victory that has served as positive reinforcement for their modus operandi of obfuscation.

Things have only gotten worse. As Kevin Page, Canada’s first parliamentary budget officer, prepares to leave his post later this month, he remains locked in a legal battle with the government — the culmination of a year-long struggle to access details on the specific nature of the deep cuts contained in the last federal budget.

Evidently, the Conservatives are tired of fighting with the PBO. The job description for Page’s replacement, released last Thursday, seems to be a direct rebuke to the outgoing watchdog. The suitable candidate will be “tactful and discreet,” it says, and capable of “achieving consensus.” (Though why an economic analyst whose job is to crunch numbers would ever need to “achieve consensus” is a mystery to us.)
...
Until the government starts to show some respect for Parliament and the transparency necessary for good government, we can only wonder what it has to hide.

- Alison rightly notes that if the B.C. Libs' deliberate use of public resources for partisan political purposes is an outrageous scandal, then the Harper Cons should face at least as much public backlash for their constant transfer of personal information from Canada's public service apparatus into party databases.

 

- Penny Collennette raises the possibility that Canada could follow in Switzerland's footsteps by implementing limits on CEO pay - noting in particular that there's little evidence that outsized pay for the corporate elite benefits anybody but executives themselves:

The compensation issue, which had previously more or less been confined to boardrooms and corporate insiders, was no longer about income clarity and disclosure of packages, perks and products. Instead, the debate shifted to themes of inequity and lack of fairness, spilling into public space, both physical and virtual. In Canada, the disgraceful behaviour of Nortel corporate executives who ran off with inflated bonuses while Nortel pensioners were left to salvage scraps, served as a stark reminder that we too must be mindful.

It’s ironic that Jim Collins’ well-regarded 2001 business book Good to Great concluded: “We found no systematic pattern linking executive compensation to the process of going from good to great... the purpose of a compensation system should not be to get the right behaviours from the wrong people, but to get the right people on the bus in the first place, and to keep them there.”

In other words, are we really sure there’s a link between excessive compensation and higher performance?

- Finally, Thomas Walkom highlights how the Cons' obsession with oil exports over all other forms of economic development has made all of Canada vulnerable to the bust cycles inherent in resource economies.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- The Star's editorial board highlights why our elected representatives should be countering the effect of precarious employment (rather than exacerbating them as the Cons have done):

Simply put, programs like Employment Insurance and the Canada Pension Plan were created back in the days when employees received wrist watches for 40 years of service. Unemployment was considered a temporary misfortune, and big companies were expected to provide adequate pensions to be topped up by government cheques. Those programs have not adapted to the new, more “precarious” world.

For example, EI benefits have been pared back for many years, to the point where less than half of jobless workers now qualify for benefits (and only 40 per cent of those in Ontario). That leaves many in the unstable job category out of luck, since they likely won’t collect enough weeks of work to qualify.

Unless laid-off workers can quickly bounce into a new job, many may end up on welfare — but not until their savings are exhausted, as required by Ontario social assistance rules. It’s a bureaucratic mess.

These flawed social programs trap workers whose tenuous existence helps private sector companies focus on their bottom line. EI should provide a soft landing, during a job search, instead of pushing workers onto welfare.

Old age benefits are no better. Since unstable jobs rarely provide company pensions, many future retirees will subsist on their limited income from the Canada Pension Plan. That makes the drive to modernize the CPP and significantly boost pensions all the more urgent.

- Meanwhile, David Climenhaga asks a rather important question as to what's happening to Alberta's publicly-owned resources - and the answer shouldn't come as much surprise:

“The transfer of public wealth to private shareholders is blistering, and our own government, rather than fighting like an owner, or even thinking like an owner, is just happy to find investors who want to cash in.” (Those investors, Dr. Taft noted as an aside – well before this became a national scandal – are frequently state-owned companies from such places as China, Abu Dhabi and Korea.)

How blistering? Well, corporate profits were up 317 per cent in the same period health care spending rose 28 per cent, incomes went up 35 per cent and education spending increased 2 per cent!

One question Taft said he couldn’t answer from the data he worked with is where all the money goes once it flows into these bloated corporate profits. But you and I don’t need a book to tell us the answer to that one: Most of it leaves the country for places where it does nothing for Canadians.

No wonder, when you think about it, that corporate special interests and their paid representatives in Canada are so aggressive in defending their “right” to rapidly export even more of our resources via pipeline to wherever – the environment, the rights of Canadians, and due process be damned!

- Tim Harper discusses the end of Kevin Page's term as Parliamentary Budget Officer - along with the importance of having a watchdog to track and challenge often-implausible official numbers.

- Stephen Harper's chief Senate flack has declared she plans to treat the residency requirement under Canada's Constitution as being met solely by a standard form declaration - with no need for the declaration to be true. Watch for criminal justice to get a lot less expensive as smart defense counsel prepare Declarations of Non-Guilt and insist there's no basis to test them through actual evidence.

- Finally, Robert Benzie reports on a rare example of conservatives imposing something resembling austerity on themselves - though it remains to be seen whether the Ontario PCs actually plan to run a more frugal election campaign or are simply using the threat to bring in more money in the short term.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Tim Harper writes about Scott Vaughan's final report as the federal environmental commissioner:

Scott Vaughan doesn’t have the profile of some of his contemporaries but as the environmental commissioner bowed out with a final report Tuesday, he reminded official Ottawa how much he will be missed.

Vaughan is leaving after five years of what he calls — in typical understatement — identifying “gaps” in the environmental policies of the Conservative government. More often than not, those gaps are more like chasms.

He also departs at a time when the environment and the economy has never been so intertwined in this country, a point he hammered home before taking his leave.

...

“We know that there’s a boom in natural resources in this country and I think what we need now, given the gaps, given the problems we found, is a boom in environmental protection in this country as well,” he said.

- Meanwhile, Aaron Wherry has some suggestions to make the Parliamentary Budget Officer more effective based on the U.S.' Congressional Budget Office. But I'm not sure there's much hope the Cons will accept "more resources" as an answer if it might cut into their advertising budget.

- The Star-Phoenix rightly called the Cons' robocall attacks against Saskatchewan's federal electoral boundaries commission "disgusting" - and just in time for the Cons to fess up only once the case had been proven against them.

- And Bill Tieleman is working on exposing the shadowy figures behind B.C.'s million-dollar corporatist media blitz.

- Finally, NDP MP Laurin Liu offers her ideas to make Parliament more effective and representative.

On predetermination

Shorter Brent Rathgeber:

What government backbencher would dare consider asking the Parliamentary Budget Officer for information if he can't suppress any inconvenient findings? I'd rather stay ignorant, thank you very much.

Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Saturday reading.

- Hamida Ghafour writes about the effect of tax avoidance by the world's wealthy on the lives of the rest of the population - particularly when coupled with austerity pushed based on a lack of revenue:

The OECD is a fierce defender of free-market capitalism. But Saint-Amans says politicians are realizing that rules set up in the 1920s need reform because allowing corporations and the very rich to hang on to huge amounts of wealth is bad for the economy.

“When you have a political crisis, I am sad to say it, you have political support and political heat,” he says in an interview from OECD headquarters in Paris. “European countries are turning to corporations and saying, ‘You don’t want us to become bankrupt. Please, pay your taxes and let’s make the changes together, otherwise we collapse. And if we collapse so will you.’”

Last year, several G20 finance ministers asked him for a report on how big companies move vast profits around the globe to avoid being taxed. Saint-Amans will release the report on Feb. 12.

“I didn’t anticipate it would happen so fast,” he says. “The fiscal crisis has turned into a budget crisis. . . . The ministers from G20 cannot explain to their people that they should pay more tax but big, profitable companies will not pay more.”

- Doug Saunders notes that Canada's foreign policy has taken a colonial turn in Africa as the Cons work to promote resource interests rather than humanitarian issues.

- Paul Wells rightly argues that the Cons' attempts to silence Kevin Page only prove he's done his job properly. But that doesn't mean that, say, Canada's unemployed should be satisfied with being declared "bad guys" as a badge of honour when there's an opportunity to challenge the government that's attacking them.

- Meanwhile, Sarah Schmidt reports that the Cons are likewise slamming the conclusions of their own sodium working group, and instead insisting that Canadians shouldn't bother caring how much of a health risk is found in their food.

- Finally, the New Union Project offers an update on the merger between CEP and CAW.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- In addition to providing my latest tagline, Alex Himelfarb takes aim at the austerians who seem happy to attack social well-being and economic development alike in the name of government-slashing:

(A)usterity had never been driven by fiscal policy or economics or evidence.  It was driven by ideology.  Market fundamentalism.  A desire to make government much smaller, eliminate or reduce, as much as politics allowed, so-called entitlements, create a “pro-business” climate of less regulation, less government, and, above all, lower taxes.

Think about the irony of this: that the huge recession-induced deficits that were largely the result of tax cuts and deregulation were now the justification to renew the commitment to that same failed ideology. Deficits were a gift – cover to do what many had wanted to do all along.  Cut government down to size.  Cut services. Cut. It seems that every failure of this neoconservative approach is used by its advocates to justify doing more of the same. That’s kind of nuts.

How about Canada? I left the Privy Council and Canada for a few years in 2006. At that time Canada had a $16 billion surplus. That’s a real problem for those who might share Cameron’s ideology because without big deficits it’s harder to argue for the urgency to cut programs, reduce government. Instead, the decision was made to cut taxes, for example, taking two cents out of GST. Today those two cents cost the federal government about $14 billion annually. That’s on top of continuing the corporate tax cuts the Liberals had already launched and on top of numerous “boutique tax cuts” and on top of Liberal tax cuts in 2000 that were the biggest in Canadian history.

Imagine none of that had happened.  Imagine that the federal government had at least a good portion of the revenue that they gave up over the last dozen years. They would have had enough money to be far more resilient in the face of recession, to help provinces that were in trouble, to invest in science, education, in a greener, cleaner economy and to begin to transform our health and social programs so they would be there for future generations.

Instead, we’re now talking about austerity as though it’s inevitable, as though we have no choice. (When our leaders tell us that there is no alternative, it is a safe bet to assume that there is indeed an alternative and one that we would prefer were it on offer.)

- Meanwhile, Chrystia Freeland points out that many of the world's wealthiest tycoons gathered in Davos are trying to perpetuate an obsession with deficits rather than well-being. But Paul Krugman has some hope that deficit hawks are rightly being marginalized in Washington.

- At home, Kevin Page's latest report features two obvious indications that deficit talk is just as empty here as elsewhere: the CP points out that the Cons' attacks on the civil service have resulted in a shift away from providing useful services without actually saving any money.

- And finally, Hugh MacKenzie reminds us that we should be concerned about a $145 billion backlog of infrastructure neglect rather than limiting our focus to cuts and tax baubles.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Steven Hoffman highlights the Cons' utter refusal to recognize that foreign aid - as defined by global treaties - doesn't mean the same thing as corporate giveaways:

Reports and commentary on Canada’s new foreign aid policy reveal the extent to which international development means different things to different people. Some see it as public charity, others as the way a country projects its values to the world. Still others, including International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino, argue that it’s “a part of Canadian foreign policy” and the fulfilment of “a duty and a responsibility to ensure that Canadian interests are promoted.”

These are all valid perspectives – international development can be any one or all of these things combined. But, unfortunately, official development assistance, to which we have made international commitments, can’t. This system, in effect since 1969, defines aid as official financial flows that are concessional in character and intended to promote the development and well-being of developing countries. Excluded are grants intended to advance donor countries’ interests, including admirable objectives such as economic growth or security from terrorism. Grants to private for-profit companies are also excluded because, by law, they primarily serve commercial objectives.

Donor countries such as Canada can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, despite skill or best intentions. Our government’s new foreign aid focus on private-sector partnerships and self-interest – which, in Mr. Fantino’s words, is for “Canadian values, Canadian business, the Canadian economy, benefits for Canada” – deserves reconsideration. It unwittingly represents a dramatic departure from the established global development system and brings Canada out of sync with the rest of the world.

- Which means Tim Harper may only be understating matters in arguing that the Cons are gutting Canadian foreign policy alone, rather than trying to attack basic international principles.

- pogge highlights a few more sad examples of the Cons' government by ill-fated improvisation, while Michael den Tandt reports on the most glaring example as the F-35 debacle is apparently wound down. And the Cons are still trying to cover up everything they do - with the latest example being their stonewalling against Kevin Page's request to see shipbuilding contracts in order to be able to assess them.

- But while Bob Hepburn may be right in his assessment of MPs when it comes to most of the Cons as being enemies of democracy, we should be careful not to tar all of our elected representatives with the same brush. After all, an unduly sweeping, "they all do it" message (in contrast to recognition where MPs represent their constituents properly) will only make it easier for the worst offenders to avoid answering for their wrongs.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Timothy Noah writes that since Republicans haven't been able to convince the American public that inequality is desirable or acceptable, they're taking another angle: engaging in inequality denialism to try to pretend a growing problem doesn't exist.

- Tim Harper discusses the importance of Kevin Page's attempts to get accurate fiscal information out of the Con government. And Andrew Coyne points out that the federal government's budget bears little relationship to the estimates which are supposed to keep MPs and the public informed as to what's going on - with even government ministers having little idea how their (nominal) decisions actually affect Canada's finances.

- Meanwhile, Don Lenihan provides an overview of the arguments to suggest Canada's democracy is in crisis. And Michael Den Tandt adds his voice to the mix.

- Finally, Don Braid writes about the revelation that Daryl Katz' massive donations to the Alberta PCs at the end of the last provincial election - and notes that the Katz story is merely a by-product of lax donation laws. Needless to say, this should give us reason to ask questions about whether Saskatchewan's elections rules should be changed to prevent similar (or worse) abuses - and whether Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party intends to preserve a flawed system for its own benefit.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- The CCPA's Christopher Schenk offers up a detailed response to the Sask Party's attacks on workers, featuring this conclusion:

In a period of widening inequality restrictive labour laws are blatantly unnecessary and regressive. Indeed, their consideration is shocking when one considers that 34% of the workforce has neither full-time work nor job security, but occupies jobs that are termed contingent or precarious, including casual employment, irregular part time work, contract work, temporary work and self employment... This growing percentage of the workforce, which generally receives low pay and no benefits, needs an economic lift and unionization, not laws that negatively impact living standards. The literature discussed above strongly suggests that RTW-type laws, contrary to Rand formula-based laws, are both inefficient and serve to slow economic growth. Saskatchewan and the rest of Canada need to move away from austerity policies and weak economic recovery and toward environmentally sustainable economic growth that allows those who need and want to work to do so in a more democratic, equitable society. Unionization contributes to this end and labour laws should respond accordingly.

- Eric Grenier criticizes an increased level of partisanship in Parliamentary statements by members. But I'll note that there's a happy medium to be found between dispensing talking points and Grenier's mention of "(wishing) good luck to the contestants in that year’s edition of Canadian Idol" as an example of civility. And so the better measure of whether MPs are making effective use of their opportunities should probably be how many actually talk about policy, rather than how many use the time for messages that are of little relevance to functions of government.

- pogge comments on how the Cons are going ever further in trying to shut down the flow of any information which might reveal what they're doing while in power - with Kevin Page's Parliamentary Budget Office being frozen out just as thoroughly as the opposition and the public.

- Finally, Murray Mandryk rightly points out some examples of how a lack of investment in needed infrastructure can have direct and disastrous consequences for citizens. And Heather Scoffield reports that investing in housing in particular can save far higher costs of providing emergency services.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Paul Wells had previously theorized that the size of environmental demonstrations in Montreal might hint at the NDP's ability to establish a long-term base. So what ended up happening?

What happened in Montreal was a great big rally for Earth Day whose messaging was, in part, overtly anti-oil-sands. And it seems to have been a hit. Apparently something like a quarter of a million people marched in lousy weather.

Meanwhile, one of the Cons' leading cheerleaders in Quebec is quite explicitly trying to push "drill baby drill". Which only figures to help highlight the glaring gap between the Harper Cons' obsession with the tar sands, and the environmentally-responsible values shared by the Quebec protesters and so many other Canadians.

- It's noteworthy enough that the Cons are attacking Nathan Cullen directly for having the nerve to stand up for his constituents. But it's especially remarkable that this little tidbit seems to have passed without comment:

The Tories are promising more attacks against individual New Democrats in the “coming days.”

Which looks like about the most blatant statement yet that the Cons are neither willing nor able to do anything other than smearing their opponents. But the fact that they see the need to now get personal with anybody who dares to speak out against them might also signal just how incapable they are of defending any of their actions on the merits.

- On that front, the fact that the Cons are pushing austerity even at the expense of economic development and jobs surely places near the top of the list of topics they don't want to discuss - perhaps ranking behind only still-growing inequality. And it's great to see Kevin Page pointing out both.

- Finally, congratulations to Pat Atkinson for earning a place in the pages of the Star-Phoenix.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Paul Buchhelt offers five reasons why the extremely wealthy should pay more in taxes. But if we can anticipate some conflict over that idea, there's stronger evidence than ever that the public is rather united behind one side.

- Bob Hepburn notes that there's plenty of work to be done to save Canadian democracy from the Cons' toxic and unaccountable politics. John Ivison slams the Cons' secrecy surrounding their choice to obliterate any pretense of independent review of resource projects. And Kevin Page rightly challenges the false spin that the Cons can't let Canadians know what services they've slashed until a year after the cuts are made.

- Joe Couture put together a couple of reports worth noting this week - first discussing the contrast between the Sask Party's willingness to boost MLA pay based on changes in the cost of living as a matter of course and its refusal to do the same for the minimum wage, then highlighting the concerns of Saskatchewan's Children's Advocate Bob Pringle about the Wall government's decision not to count children when it comes to assigning electoral weight.

- Finally, while I have some concerns about his insistence on a progressive narrative which seems to cede an awful lot of ground to exactly the interests we need to counter, Jared Milne's guest post at pogge on the need for a new progressive narrative is worth a read.

Thursday Evening Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- In the last couple of days' worth of developments on Robocon, the Cons defaulted to their standard setting of admitting nothing and misleading about everything - though it's hard to see that strategy working out well given the amount of information that's already coming to light. Dan Arnold and Michael Harris considered the necessary ingredients to make the electoral fraud into a lasting scandal. Trish Hennessy ran some numbers on vote suppression. Andrew Coyne lamented the state of Canada's institutional accountability, while Chantal Hebert hopes Elections Canada can get to the bottom of the fraud. While the Cons' latest spin is that their national party (which is of course already an admitted electoral cheater) had nothing to do with the scheme, Harold Albrecht has already acknowledged otherwise when it came to false calls in his own riding. And Sixth Estate identifies the various parts of the Cons' vote suppression organization while rightly suggesting that we focus on full disclosure and investigation rather than getting caught up the prospect of by-elections.

- Meanwhile, Helene Buzzetti exposes a new incarnation of Conadscam, as Quebec ridings once again plowed tens of thousands of dollars of claimed election spending into they-can't-explain-what in an apparent effort to shift expenses down from the national level.

- Barbara Yaffe compares the Cons' no-price-is-too-high attitude toward prison spending with their miserly attitude toward Canadian seniors. Which is surely the kind of unflattering comparison the Cons want to shut down by hiding the books from Parliament and the public alike.

- If we were lacking for reasons to doubt the spin of corporate tax-slashers, Erin provides them with a particular focus on an attempt to keep racing to the bottom ahead of the United States.

- Finally, the main difference between Richard Evans and a good chunk of the right-wing noise machine is that he's foolish enough to connect the dots in combining eliminationist rhetoric with hatred for anybody who isn't in the tank for the oil industry. But it's well worth highlighting just what happens when the dirty truth manages to seep out.

Parliament In Review: September 30, 2011

The Harper Conservatives' choice to talk about everything but the economy continued on September 30, with the day's debate taken up by the Cons' anti-refugee bill as well as a first look at the latest incarnation of Senate reform.

The Big Issue

Let's give top billing to Senate reform, if only because Tim Uppal's introduction of his bill so nicely highlighted the problems with the Senate that Stephen Harper has gone out of his way to exacerbate over the past few years:

(S)enators are selected and appointed through a process that is neither formal nor transparent, with no democratic mandate whatsoever from Canadians.
...
Taken together, the Senate lacks any essential democratic characteristics. Its effectiveness and legitimacy suffers from the democratic deficit.

Not surprisingly, part of the NDP's response included challenging the Cons' own unelected and illegitimate Senators who blocked climate change legislation which was passed by a majority of elected MPs in the House of Commons. Even less surprisingly, the Cons took no responsibility for having done so.

Meanwhile, the opposition parties had plenty more to say about the current Senate. David Christopherson highlighted the fact that the Senate's purpose was explicitly anti-democratic, having been based on a desire to ensure "that the unwashed masses did not run amok", and also noted that an elected Senate would likely prove even more partisan than the current version. Christopherson and Stephane Dion agreed on the dangers of gridlock arising out of an elected Senate. Niki Ashton noted that under the Senate's age restrictions, she and nearly 20 other elected NDP MPs would be prohibited from seeking election. Marc-Andre Morin warned that a greater role for the Senate would provide a means for Stephen Harper to govern from beyond the political grave long after voters had definitely rejected his party.

Finally, Alexandrine Latendresse pointed out that the title of the Senate reform bill is explicitly aimed at "the selection of senators", being an issue where provincial consent is constitutionally required. Which will make for a particularly noteworthy observation given the significance the Cons attached to the name of their other bill up for debate...

Unfriendly Welcomes

Once again, the opposition parties presented plenty of strong critiques of the Cons' anti-refugee bill. Philip Toone traced the origins of the international refugee treaties violated by the bill back to the attempts of refugees to flee Nazi Germany. Marie-Claude Morin pointed out how gratuitous restrictions on reunification attack the family unit as a vital source of support for potential immigrants.

But rest assured that the Cons had at least one ace in the hole, as newly-elected MP Costas Menegakis proudly told the opposition that it should ignore the fact that the bill itself attacks refugees alone based on the fact that its title mentions human smugglers. If only the Cons could be counted on to actually apply the standard of debating only the title of any given bill rather than its substance, just think of the private members' bills the opposition could pass under the title of the Praise Be to Our Strong and Glorious Leader Stephen Harper Act.

In Brief

Joe Comartin questioned the Cons on giving away futile corporate tax breaks which perfectly match their structural deficit, while Guy Caron challenged their insistence on PBO costing of private members' bills while refusing to allow the same for their own legislation (including their plans to trash the Canadian Wheat Board). Bruce Hyer called for a focus on passenger rail, while Olivia Chow introduced her private member's bill on transit and tested the Cons' reaction. Mathieu Ravignat took up the NDP's cause of legislation to prevent floor-crossing. And Andrew Cash kept the pressure on Tony Clement by asking that any additional business e-mails sent from his personal address to escape detection be released.