Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Genevieve Guenther and Michael Mann offer a reminder that climate denial - from Donald Trump or anybody else - won't avert the consequences we're already seeing as a result of carbon pollution. And Marta Serafinko reports on the threat climate change poses to biodiversity as natural habitats are eliminated. 

- Meanwhile, Gaye Taylor discusses how clean energy is replacing dirty diesel in remote Canadian communities. And Susanna Twidale reports on new data showing that wind and solar power contributed more to global power supply than fossil gas in April, showing that a transition is well underway even as we're told we have no option but a choice between fossil fuels. 

- Ken Collier discusses how Mark Carney's choice to wind down pharmacare threatens Canada's wider public health care system. And Bruce Campbell writes about the risks to the public interest posed by deregulation and privatization. 

- Thor Benson talks to Chris Hayes about the dangers of artificial intelligence - with the erosion of human intellectual development looming as an inescapable result no matter how many of the logistical problems are waved away. Don't Surveil Me is encouraging Canadians to take action to protect privacy online in the face of yet another "lawful access" bill intended to eliminate anything of the sort. And Mike Benson discusses how public opinion is turning against mass surveillance once its presence is identified. 

- Finally, Justin Briley writes about the need to defend and promote fair taxes as the price of community and civilization, rather than echoing anti-social talking points in pursuit of the false hope of temporary political gain. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Samantha Hancox-Li discusses the need to ensure the rampant violence and corruption of the second Trump term is met with prosecutions, rather than another round of calls to sweep criminality under the rug yet again as long as it's being committed from sufficiently powerful positions. Alan Elrod points out the need for the Democratic Party to lead that effort (no matter how much more comfortable its legislative leaders are trying to pretend that Republican fascists are their friends). 

- Jonathan Watts discusses the dangers of trying to keep countries addicted to fossil fuels by force even as cleaner and more affordable options become readily available. And Carl Meyer examines the similarities between the anti-regulation, pro-dirty energy structures put in place by the Trump regime and the Carney government. 

- Sophie Hurwitz weighs in on the reality that opposition to data centres is one of the few truly unifying issues across party lines in the U.S. And Tom Chivers points out that young voters are particularly skeptical of artificial intelligence.

- Joseph Cox reports on the FBI's plans to buy U.S.-wide license plate reading technology to effectively allow for total surveillance of anybody with their own vehicle. And Michael Geist writes about the Carney Libs' continued push to impose absolute online surveillance on Canadians. 

- Finally, Luke Savage calls out the small-c conservative demand that the plebes work until they drop (toward the purpose of further enriching the ruling class). 

New column day

Here, on how a change in government hasn't done anything to slow the spread of Canada's surveillance state - both in terms of intrusive new legislative proposals, and a continued determination to operate even outside the law.

For further reading...
- Again, Dave Seglins and Rachel Houlihan reported on the Cold War-era wiretapping approvals which are still being officially denied by the federal government.
- Justin Ling documented the history of "lawful access" legislation, along with the more recent effort of Ralph Goodale and the RCMP to repackage the same intrusions in a new message.
- Tonda MacCharles reported on both CSIS' admission that it too spied on journalists, and its subsequent broken promise to own up to its past surveillance - seemingly because it's still engaged in the same tactics now.
- Finally, Colin Freeze reports that CSIS has also been seeking bulk data collection mechanisms for years. Asha Tomlinson points out how many apps already collect far more data than they need for business purposes. And Sasa Petricic looks to China for a warning as to the implications for privacy and individual freedom when state power meets the centralized collection and use of data.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Thomas Frank writes that a progressive party can only expect to succeed if it places principles of equality and workers' interests at the core of everything it does - rather than serving mostly as the voice of a wealthy professional class:

Somewhere in a sunny corner of the country, either right now or very shortly, a group of tech tycoons or well-meaning private equity investors will meet to discuss what went wrong in this election cycle. They will consider many things: the sexism and racism of Trump voters, the fundamental foreignness of the flyover, the problems one encounters when dealing with evangelicals. They will celebrate some activist they learned about from NPR, they will enjoy some certified artisanal cuisine, they will hand out prizes to the same people that got prizes at the last event they attended, and they will go back to their comfortable rooms at the resort and sleep ever so soundly.

These people think they know what liberalism includes and what it doesn’t include. And in the latter category fall the concerns that made up the heart and soul of liberal politics a few decades ago: labor and work and exploitation and economic equality.

To dedicate your life to concerns like these today is to sign up for obscurity and frustration. It’s to enter a world without foundation grants, without appearances on MSNBC, and without much job security. Nothing about this sphere of liberal activism is fashionable or attractive. Books on its subjects go unreviewed and unread. Strikes drag on for weeks before they are noticed by the national media. Labor organizers are some of the hardest-working but least-thanked people I know. Labor reporters are just about extinct. Promises to labor unions are voided almost as soon as they leave a politician’s lips.

- Meanwhile, Tom Parkin discusses how the NDP - and Jagmeet Singh in particular - may serve as Canada's antidote to the Trump brand of politics.

- Chuck Collins, Helen Flannery and Josh Hoxie examine the toxic effects of relying on gilded giving from a small number of extremely wealthy individuals to support services, rather than being able to build a base of broader funding (whether public or charitable). And Cathy Crowe makes the case for a push toward building affordable housing.

- Daniel Leblanc reports on the CRA's long-awaited progress in cracking down on offshore tax havens.

- Kevin Metcalf discusses how the new surveillance state established by C-51 is only criminalizing and isolating youth while offering no real security benefit. And Justin Ling notes that the RCMP's response to the repeated rejection of "lawful access" legislation is to push for the same powers under a different name - with Ralph Goodale and the Libs only enabling them in the cause.

- Finally, John Doyle writes about the blatant elitism behind Kellie Leitch's drive to destroy Canada's only major media outlet which isn't ultimately answerable to corporate interests.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Don Pittis writes that it will take far more than words and sentiments to reverse the trend of growing income inequality. Elaine Power points out that Ontario's social assistance programs - like those elsewhere - far fall short of meeting basic human needs. And Christopher Mackie reminds us that the effects of poverty go well beyond immediate financial consequences:

Canada has free, high-quality healthcare for everyone. So why do the richest 10% of people live seven years longer than the poorest? Deep poverty can be associated with a drop in life expectancy of 20 years or more. If we look at both life expectancy and years lived with disability, the rich are 39% healthier than the poor.

Income affects health in several ways, including the direct impact on the resources needed for healthy living, access to healthy physical environments and access to healthy social environments.

Poverty limits access to nutritious food, recreation opportunities, adequate housing, and the education needed to pull oneself out of poverty. Each year, the Middlesex-London Health Unit issues a report that compares the cost of nutritious food to income received from minimum or welfare wage. This Nutritious Food Basket Report consistently shows that it is impossible for people on low income in London and Middlesex County to afford healthy food once basic costs such as rent and utilities are paid.
...
The benefits of policies that address poverty go far beyond simply helping the poor. Research has consistently shown that everyone is better off in societies that are more equal. Comparisons of countries which are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) consistently show that in societies that are most equal, even the poor are healthier than the rich in societies that are the least equal. In other words, greater income equality means better health for everyone – including the rich.

This paradox – that my income is linked with my health, but that my society’s income equality is also linked with my health – is not fully understood. One theory is that it is linked with the social environments we live in. More unequal societies tend to be more competitive, with fewer opportunities for upward mobility. This can be associated with stress and hopelessness. Stress is linked with a number of health problems from heart disease to cancer. Hopelessness can be devastating, reducing motivation to seek employment and leading a person to neglect their health or even engage in self-harming behaviours like addiction to alcohol and drugs.

In more equal societies, a feeling that friends, neighbours and fellow citizens will offer help when needed can be motivational, even leading to an increased sense of self-worth. Reduced stress can allow us to see past day-to-day challenges and make better decisions for the long term.

- Christopher Adams exposes how employers are exploiting millenial workers. And Evelyn Kwong and Sara Mojtehedzadeh report on a temporary employee's workplace death in Toronto, while Adam Hunter discusses the appalling trend of people being killed on the job in Saskatchewan.

- Tonda MacCharles reports on the Libs' discussion paper on security laws. And Jeremy Nuttall notes that there's ample reason for concern that they want to make matters even worse by reviving dubious "lawful access" provisions rather than correcting even the overreach found in Bill C-51.

- The Star's editorial board writes that we should be strengthening our universal public health care system rather than destroying it as Brian Day and others want to do.

- Finally, Kathy Tomlinson details how Canada's tax laws are being flouted by the investors making millions off of the explosion of Vancouver's real estate market.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Hakan Bengtsson offers some useful discussion about the challenges facing Sweden's social democratic system - as the same factors being used to prevent the development of a more equitable society in Canada and elsewhere are being cited as excuses to tear down the model many countries aspire to reach:

The Swedish experience has shown that deregulation has not resulted in a considerable number of non-profit alternatives, as many people believed and which they used as an argument for change. Instead, it has meant the emergence of private companies, large corporate groups and venture capitalists in the Swedish welfare system. This was hardly envisaged when these “reforms” were discussed and implemented. There is every reason for other countries to study developments in Sweden in this respect. Today a much more stringent regulation of schools and medical and care services is on the agenda. This is, at any rate, what the labour movement is currently discussing and proposing.
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The future of the welfare state touches on, by implication, how much of our consumption should be handled by individual citizens in their private capacity, and how much should be paid for jointly in the public sector and in collective forms. The question of the rate of taxation will have to be discussed. The Swedish welfare model covers many areas and relies on financing via taxation to a considerable extent.

As early as the late 1950s, John Kenneth Galbraith was arguing that a greater proportion of our consumption should be channelled through the public sector rather than disbursed in the private sphere – otherwise the private sector would become rich and the public sector poor. This risk is just as obvious today.

- And Larry Hubich writes about the need to deal with a massive (and growing) income gap in Saskatchewan.

- CBC reports on the Cons' latest attempt to revive lawful access legislation (this time while talking about cyber-bullying instead). Paula Simons recognizes the civil liberties at stake when telecoms are encouraged to hand over sensitive personal information to the state without notice to anybody affected, while David Fraser is working on a thorough review of the bill.

- Finally, Tim Harper and Mohammed Adam both take a moment to highlight Chris Montgomery as the lone person advising the upper echelons of the Cons' leadership who spoke out against the bribery and cover-up carried out by the PMO and its Senate flunkies. But Montgomery's role only highlights the unethical behaviour of the rest of the individuals involved - who can't claim they merely went along with a plan that wasn't questioned by anybody, but who actively labeled a public servant who pointed out its ethical frailties as "the Problem" while pushing ahead with their scheme.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Mike de Souza's report on the Cons' attempts to hide both the oil industry's involvement and its own lack of credibility is well worth a read in full. But let's focus on a more basic revelation: Harper has set up a publicly-funded lobbying team to make sure that tar sands operators - who of course have billions in reserves sitting around to let them fund their own lobbying - get their way in any free trade negotiations.

- Meanwhile, the Cons continue to face difficulty defending their evidence-free policy in the courts - this time as Justice Anne Molly declared a mandatory minimum sentence to be unconstitutional.

- The National Post weighs in against the Cons' plans for warrantless online surveillance:

(T)he government will force Internet service providers to install costly monitoring equipment on their networks. Taxpayers will likely be forced to foot part of the bill, but the rest of the cost will be borne by private industry. Smaller providers could be driven out of what is already an uncompetitive market. The law would also make it much easier for police to force telecommunication companies to retain information on their customers and to enable tracking devices on mobile phones.

This type of legislation brings us one step closer to George Orwell's dystopian vision of a totalitarian state that keeps its citizens under constant surveillance. Yet there is no evidence the new law will achieve its public policy objectives.

Law enforcement agencies have been unable to come up with a single investigation that has been hampered by the limits of the laws currently on the books. Even the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police could not find a "sufficient quantity of credible examples" to support the additional powers the lawful access legislation would grant them, according to a series of internal e-mails obtained by the Vancouver-based group Open Media. Postmedia News has also obtained government documents, in which officials from within Public Safety Canada object to some of the key arguments the Minister has used to justify the bill.

- But the Cons do believe some things should be kept secret - like public policy discussion. Fortunately, the NDP is fighting them every step of the way.

- Finally, Stewart Webb and Michael Byers tear into the Cons' faith-based defence procurement policy:

Thanks to the introduction of faith-based procurement, the Harper government can now ignore the complexities and inefficiencies of design specifications, equipment testing, contract tendering, specified industrial regional benefits, etc.

From now on, decisions on new equipment for the Canadian Forces will be divinely ordained, and channelled to Canadians through Mr. Fantino’s divine connections.
...
Instead of engaging with our analysis, Mr. Fantino told the House of Commons that we are “critical of everything that is holy and decent” about the government’s defence procurement efforts.

As the quotation at the beginning of this article illustrates, this is the second time that Mr. Fantino has referred publicly and explicitly to the divine nature of his new portfolio.

God’s interest in fighter jets was, to say the least, an unexpected revelation for us.

On constructive alternatives

Yes, plenty of key websites will be going dark today - and for good reason based on the U.S. legislation being protested.

But today also marks one month from the February 18 membership deadline in the NDP's leadership race. So today may be a good time to sign up to elect the leader of Canada's Official Opposition - and to encourage others who recognize the dangers of regressive technology policy to do the same.

Parliament In Review: October 27, 2011

Thursday, October 27 saw the House of Commons discuss the gun registry - and if the Cons' choices to not just dismantle the federal long gun registry but also shred the evidence weren't problematic enough, the debate also featured the Cons' closure motion.

The Big Issue

Once again, that motion faced a strong response from the opposition. Joe Comartin noted that the Cons were breaking all of the Liberal records they once decried in shutting down debate on such a regular basis. Kevin Lamoureux observed that the Cons were using measures to ram through legislation in place of any discussion with the opposition parties as to what pace would be appropriate. Peter Julian reminded the Cons that they won their majority by promising to be more moderate rather than turning up the extremism. And Matthew Dube pointed out the Cons' newfound desire to burn the evidence that's brand new to the legislation introduced this fall.

As for the substance of the debate, the most noteworthy point for future discussion may have come from Con MP Colin Carrie, questioning Irwin Cotler on why the gun registry was supposed to be an unreasonable intrusion:

In the part of the bill that talks about destroying personal records, he called that destroying evidence. When do governments or police forces gather evidence? They gather evidence when there is a crime committed.

However, gun owners are not criminals. They are law-abiding citizens in Canada who believe in the right to own personal property, and their personal information and records are not evidence. It is extremely upsetting to Canadians who are abiding by the law and who put their records out there to respond to the law that is on the books today to be treated like criminals.

Why does the member view law-abiding gun owners as criminals and their personal information and records as evidence?

Of course, by the same standard in which having evidence of one's activity preserved by government order is "to be treated like criminals", Vic Toews and company are no less committed to criminalizing the Internet than they are to freeing up long guns. And if the gun registry bill gets rammed through with a large enough helping of Carrie's style of rhetoric before the discussion on lawful access comes to a close, that contrast doesn't figure to help the Cons' efforts to sell what's a far greater intrusion on personal freedom than the mere registration of a few items.

Meanwhile, Jack Harris coined the phrase "billion dollar bonfire" to describe the Cons' data destruction. Comartin pointed out how the destruction of the gun registry runs contrary to international norms. Comartin then noted that the registry would work better than now if police were properly trained to use it, while Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet pointed out that the Cons' registration amnesties have deliberately made the registry less useful for the past few years. Nycole Turmel questioned why the Cons would go to war against provinces who want to set up registries of their own. Philip Toone pointed out that the Cons' claims to saving $2 billion are utterly ridiculous given that the price of setting up the registry has already been spent, while Kevin Lamoureux repeatedly highlighted the waste involved in needlessly scrapping data that's going to be reassembled at the provincial level anyway. Guy Caron criticized the Cons' all-or-nothing approach to policy-making, while Linda Duncan questioned their interest in victims of crime only after the fact and their neglect of women's issues including gun safety.

Building for the Future

The other main topic of discussion came from Helene Leblanc's motion on infrastructure. Not surprisingly, all opposition parties recognized that infrastructure investment is an ongoing need, with Olivia Chow noting the economic benefits of infrastructure investment and David Christopherson highlighting how infrastructure supports citizen health and safety.

To nobody's surprise, though, the Cons chose to disagree with the motion, claiming that their rushed stimulus spending over the past couple of years should eliminate any need for talk of a future infrastructure strategy.

Take Note

Peter Van Loan introduced a take-note debate on Coptic Christians in Egypt for reasons not apparent, as the strong agreement among all parties suggested that a consensus statement could have fulfilled the same purpose as a discussion in the House of Commons. (Though Jinny Sims' concerns about the tyranny of the majority might have some echoes beyond the foreign policy debate alone, and Joe Comartin offered a sharp response to the Cons' bluster about an office of religious freedom in pointing out their broken promise of an agency to promote democracy.)

In Brief

David Christopherson raised questions about the Cons' satellite boondoggle in the making. Comartin used the traditional Thursday question about the Parliamentary agenda to ask just how much debate is enough when the Cons are invoking closure at every turn. John Rafferty introduced a private member's bill to protect workers' termination and severance pay in cases of employer bankruptcy. And Peter Julian introduced a bill neatly calculated to send the Cons into conniptions - proposing a holiday (which of course doesn't fit the Cons focus on cheapening labour at every turn) to honour the flag the Cons have tried so desperately to wrap themselves in.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Tim Harper wonders what's next for the Occupy movement, but rightly notes that state crackdowns are completely unwarranted. And Jacqueline Kennelly highlights the value of the Occupy movement as part of the work in progress that is democracy:

From the Occupy movement is already emerging new energy, new commitments, and new conversations. The Occupiers themselves are figuring out how to run their small communities, and more: they're reaching out to others to ex-pand the conversations begun within their tent cities. The Occupy Ottawa movement is engaging with academics at Carleton and the University of Ottawa to develop panel discussions, in order to educate the public and themselves about the complexities of the capitalist system that they know is not working. The original movement in New York, Occupy Wall Street, has had regular visits from scholars and writers. The blogosphere, Facebook, and Twitter are alive with conversations about what this movement means and what it is trying to achieve.

But beyond these conversations lies the more important legacy of a movement such as this one: the embodied experience of lived democracy. It is a recognition that at the root of democracy lie human relationships, in all of their messiness, complexity, and beauty. And it is the realization that the process of building a better world is just that: a process. That is the point.

- Ann Cavoukian speaks out against the Cons' Internet surveillance legislation.

- Michel Drapeau weighs in on the Cons' desire to torch the data from Canada's gun registry:

Mr. Drapeau, who is a historian who recently co-wrote a tome on military law with Federal Court Justice Gilles Letourneau, said he’s “shocked.” The records are “part of our history. It’s part of our makeup, it’s part of our culture, it’s part of making us the way we come,” he said.

“This is what they used to do in the former Soviet Union—wipe out portions of history, or in East Germany and so on, and in China. I find that from a democratic standpoint, let alone an archival standpoint, this is without precedent, and a very, very serious event in the life of a nation...”

- Finally, Donald K. Johnson takes the problem with John Ibbitson's analysis of charitable giving rules a step further. But let's make it clear just how far off base Johnson is by pointing to his example of a system he wants Canada to follow:

It’s now vital for our government to capitalize on this enormous success by expanding the capital gains tax exemption to include charitable gifts in the form of private company shares and real estate. I should note that charitable gifts of both of these asset classes are exempt from capital gains taxes in the United States. By introducing these measures in the next budget, the government would be levelling the fundraising playing field for our not-for-profit sector with their American counterparts.

So who wants to make the case that the U.S.' greater tax dodges for charitable giving (coupled with the rabid anti-tax doctrine taken as a given by Johnson) have produced better social outcomes?

Thursday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your day.

- David Olive reassures us that we're not in a depression, but points out plenty of other reasons for concern with Canada's economy:

Jim Flaherty, the federal finance minister, tried to slap down Peggy Nash, the NDP finance critic, in the Commons earlier this week by accusing her of “badmouthing” the economy. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had just downgraded its forecasts of Canadian GDP growth — from 2.8 per cent this year to only 2.1; and to a mere 1.9 per cent next year from an earlier forecast of 2.6 per cent.

If Nash is badmouthing the economy, then so are the IMF and David Rosenberg. Spitting on the messengers doesn’t change the fact that for the almost 1.4 million Canadians who are unemployed, we are indeed in a depression. And that about one million children in this country are living in poverty.

Our jobless rate, at 7.3 per cent, remains higher than the 6.0 per cent of October 2008, when the Great Recession began. And Canadian household debt is at near-record levels, as the income of middle- and working-class Canadians has continued its 30-year stagnation.

- Speaking of which, Lawrence Martin wonders why the standard of living for most Canadians has indeed been stagnating for decades. And it's not hard to see what other factors seem to feed into the lack of progress:

The question Canadians should be asking is not how we stack up against others, but given our resource riches and other advantages, how we measure up to our own past standards.

In an essay in a newly published academic text, University of Dalhousie economist Lars Osberg provides an answer. We stack up dismally. From 1950 into the 1980s, hourly wages grew at a good rate as did living standards. From then on growth has been “pitifully small,” he says.

“For roughly thirty years, the average real hourly wage has hardly changed in Canada and the national unemployment rate has simultaneously been high by Canadian standards. This stagnation of real hourly wages is historically unprecedented.”
...
The conventional wisdom is that the economic record was dismal under the Trudeau government. In the 1970s, western economies suffered through oil price shocks and stagflation and Canada sufffered as a result, posting a huge deficit by the time Trudeau left office in 1984. But by comparison to later years the record wasn’t so bad. Living standards grew nicely through Trudeau’s governance and the percentage of Canadians living in poverty dropped from 23 percent in 1968 to 13 percent in 1984.

In the post-Trudeau period, education levels increased, Osberg notes, and baby boomers entered into their most productive years. But growth numbers flat-lined anyway.
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A rate of seven percent, considerably worse than in the old Canada, seems fine (to the Harper Cons). In the new Canada of stagnant living standards it’s the new normal.

- Jesse Brown is one of many celebrating the omission of lawful access from the Cons' omnibus crime bill. But Michael Geist warns against declaring victory too soon.

- Finally, the Star-Phoenix editorial board takes notice that Saskatchewan's urban voters are poorly served under the province's current electoral boundaries. And it's worth noting that they seem to have been prompted by Brian Topp, who's also pointed out the follies of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Lawrence Martin slams the proliferation of gratuitous surveillance on citizens, with a particular focus on the Cons' "lawful access" legislation:

In Canada, the impact, while far less egregious, has been profound enough. Here 9/11 has served as the enabler of a new security and surveillance mindset. What happened a decade ago triggered the Afghanistan war and the reinstituting of a military mentality at a time when, the Cold War having passed, there was hope we could move beyond the war psychology. While not directly tied, the post 9/11 security climate has helped undergird our government’s lock-’em-up, law-and-order preoccupation that the Canadian Bar Association lambasted on the weekend. Another effect of 9/11 was to bring on a rash of new border-security measures that cut into trade flows and made passports mandatory.

On the question of surveillance and reduced civil liberties, the latest Ottawa measure is what is termed “lawful access” legislation. This will compel Internet service providers to disclose customer information to authorities without a court order. In other words – blunter words – law enforcement agencies will have a freer hand in spying on the private lives of Canadians.
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In many respects, 9/11 has been a boon to Conservative interests. The security agenda, military revitalization, law and order are all priorities of the political right. Economically, the post 9/11 American decline has had obvious trade and other repercussions here. If there is a positive, it is the Conservatives’ realization, as evidenced by the Prime Minister’s trip to Latin America last week, that it must seek market diversification.

It is imperative because, illogically, post-9/11 fear and paranoia have not receded with time and show no signs – even though there has been no terror on U.S. soil since 9/11 – of doing so. As with the Cold War, the continuance of the war on terror will be all fine and well with the vested military/industrial interests.

Proponents of the great American pastime of threat inflation need only roll out the fear that terror can happen again. Since no one can prove that it won’t happen again, they can’t be negated. In the meantime, the security-surveillance networks will continue to grow – on the American side of the border and on ours.

- Jane Taber provides an update on the Broadbent Institute, featuring what should hopefully be the first of many noteworthy hires:

Apparently, the idea was cooking on the 75-year-old former politician’s backburner for a long time and finally he decided the timing was right, given the NDP’s breakthrough to Official Opposition status in the May 2 election. (There has been some suggestion the Liberals try to launch a centrist think tank, too.)

Late last week, Mr. Broadbent took another step in hiring Kathleen Monk, 37, the director of strategic communications in Jack Layton’s office, as his executive director. The former journalist joined the NDP Leader’s team in 2006.

- Vaughn Palmer points out that Adrian Dix looks to have done remarkably well in building both unity within the B.C. NDP, and bridges to new candidates.

- Finally, the Cons don't want Canadians hearing from anybody discussing the economy in terms of anything but preapproved spin. But the good news is that we can count on being informed that the Cons have always warned that it would probably be necessary to reduce economic expectations at some time in August.

Wednesday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your day.

- Charlie Angus is leading the charge against the Cons' plan to ram through lawful access legislation, labeling it as warrantless snooping and spying on Canadians. We'll have to see how far Angus can get in swaying public opinion, but a concerted effort over the summer could go a long way to at least make this part of the dumb-on-crime strategy into a political loser for the Cons.

- Sun Media isn't prepared to meet basic media standards for accuracy and fairness. On a newsworthiness scale, this ranks somewhere below "dog bites man" - is "dog wants food" common enough to fit the bill?

- Meanwhile, the Conference Board of Canada not only recognizing a growing level of inequality but also hinting that it's a problem actually does qualify as a remarkable turn of events.

The 33-year trend which has accelerated since 1993, raises questions about the country’s economic well-being, including whether Canada is using all the skills and talents of its citizens and whether social cohesion and fairness are being undermined, says How Canada Performs: Is Canada becoming more unequal?

Social policy experts who have been raising the alarm over Canada’s growing income gap since 2006, say the Conference Board report represents a watershed.

“The significance of this report is that it is now firmly on the radar of the business establishment,” said economist Armine Yalnizyan who has written several reports on the issue for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives that are referenced by the Conference Board.

“The jury is no longer out. This is a pressing issue of our era,” Yalnizyan said in an interview.

- Finally, the Cons have officially completed the Harper Shuffle on their earlier suppression of a report on the Champlain Bridge, having completely reversed their position without either admitting they were wrong or even acknowledging that they've changed course.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Tabatha Southey eviscerates the Cons' determination to force Canadians into a state of constant and unregulated online surveillance at their own expense:

Bill C-51 seems to indicate a shift. It makes accessing our most private data easier by essentially conscripting telecom companies and ISPs into operating more sophisticated version of warrantless wiretaps.

At the same time, it allows the private companies that have a virtual lock on the market – a situation that our supposedly pro-competition government seems to be remarkably at peace with, and one that does, coincidentally, make this monitoring relatively simple – to recoup those costs as they see fit.

Perhaps as a result, there has been little opposition to Bill C-51 from the big six ISPs.

It feels a bit like a lighter version of the Stasi, only privatized. The spies send you a monthly bill, but they're endlessly happy to talk to you about bundling.

- Jeffrey Simpson is equally scathing in criticizing the Cons' ugly determination to keep pushing asbestos around the world:

(W)e mine asbestos, we ship it, we make money from it, and we’ll use every diplomatic trick in the book to defend this odious practice. We are the Ugly Canadians.

The Harper government could care less. It vigorously defends mining asbestos because of one little corner of Quebec, near Thetford Mines, where the asbestos is mined and shipped to developing countries, mostly in Asia. Stephen Harper’s top Quebec minister, Christian Paradis, used to head the Thetford Mines chamber of commerce. Mr. Harper campaigned in the area and supported the mining. He spent part of Friday, St. Jean Baptiste Day, in Thetford Mines, thereby reinforcing his government’s political marriage to asbestos.
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It’s true that some countries haven’t banned the substance, claiming they monitor how and where it’s used. If anyone believes the myth that developing countries with poor bureaucracies and widespread corruption oversee the substance’s use, then that person is engaging in willful self-deception.

Canada is a curious place when it comes to lecturing others about their bad practices while protecting our own.

- While I'm generally a fan of Susan Delacourt's, her article on the cost of abolishing the Senate looks to avoid or downplay a couple of rather important contextual points.

First, as Delacourt mentions once then omits from all subsequent conmparisons, even the most extreme estimates of possible total severance costs are lower than the cost of operating the Senate for a single year - leaving no plausible argument that abolishing the Senate would be anything but a net plus from a fiscal standpoint on a time frame longer than about 18 months.

And second, Delacourt doesn't mention that allocating one-time spending to buy out current employees elsewhere in the public service is part of the Cons' general austerity plan. In fact, the Cons' supplementary estimates include a total of $1.9 billion ($1.3 billion of it new since March) for purposes including "entitlements on cessation of service or employment" - dwarfing any possible estimate of Senate severance costs, while also highlighting the absurdity of funding the Senate without question while pretending to be interested in identifying and eliminating wasteful expenses.

- Finally, John Geddes' article on Jack Layton is worth a read in full. But it's particularly worth noting Layton's take on the value of collective action:

Layton expounded on his view of urban affairs in “City Politics in Canada,” an essay published in a textbook in 1990. He paints a cityscape rife with class conflict. The business class hires “experts, lobbyists and lawyers” to push its development interests. Community groups dominated by the middle class occasionally face off against business. Poor neighbourhoods “can almost always count on defeat.”

His response is to urge organized community action. He’s aware that his slant raises questions about his perspective on individual liberty. Layton addresses the tension between individual and group interests in the forward he contributed to Trent University lecturer Robert Meynell’s new book, Canadian Idealism and the Philosophy of Freedom. (Meynell includes Charles Taylor among the seminal idealists.) “The idealist current,” Layton writes, “holds that human society has the potential to achieve liberty when people work together to form a society in which equality means more than negative liberty, the absolute and protected right to run races against each other to determine winners.” He sums up: “Idealists imagine a positive liberty that enables us to build together toward common objectives that fulfill and even surpass our individual goals.”