Wednesday Evening Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- The results of Stockton, CA's experiment with a guaranteed income show a predictable improvement in both well-being and economic success for people with income security. Lorne Calvert makes the case to introduce a guaranteed liveable income in Canada. And Will Wilkinson writes about the folly of holding basic supports for children hostage based on the actions of parents.

- Lars Osberg tracks Canada's inequality over the past 75 years. And Ricardo Lamour and Amel Zaazaa examine how taxes and public payments have all too often served to entrench racial disparities.

- Justin Ling takes a look at Canada's profoundly broken system of incarceration. And Brendan Devlin points out how "critical infrastructure" laws are being used to turn legitimate protest into an entry point for the criminal justice system. 

- Daniel Boffey reports on the agreement among EU countries to cooperate in shutting down corporate tax avoidance. And Global Financial Integrity offers its recommendations to embed protections against money laundering into the global economic system.

- Finally, Althia Raj reports on Canada's embarrassing rating at the bottom of the world in protection for whistleblowers.

New column day

Here, on how Scott Moe's equalization bluster ultimately shows only that he's more interested in political posturing than responsible governance.

For further reading...
- Gregory Beatty reviews how Saskatchewan's effort to remove renewable resource revenue from the equalization formula was abandoned when Brad Wall decided it was inconvenient to remind the public of Stephen Harper's broken promises, while Murray Mandryk also traced the history in connection with the Saskatchewan Party's leadership campaign. And Tim Cook reported on Lorne Calvert's plan for a constitutional challenge when it was raised.
- The Star-Phoenix' editorial board calls for an adult conversation about equalization. And Daniel Beland, Gregory Marchildon, Andre Lecours and Rose Olfert rightly argue that Moe's attempt to undermine the concept of equalization itself falls far short of the mark.
- Finally, the column's reference to the expected returns from a carbon price are based on this policy brief (PDF) from Dale Eisler, Margot Hurlbert, Jim Marshall and Jeremy Rayner.

#skndpldr Roundup

Not surprisingly, the last week has been fairly quiet on the Saskatchewan NDP leadership front. But I'll offer comments on a couple of developments I hadn't yet discussed.

To start with, Joe Couture reported on questions about the similarities between Cam Broten's leadership platform and the policy report produced from the process he chaired in advance of the previous election. And while I don't see the issue being quite as serious as both Erin Weir and Ryan Meili make it sound in their quotes within Couture's report, I do think it works to the detriment of Broten's core message.

After all, Broten's campaign theme has revolved around his experience and readiness to lead immediately. And he hasn't hesitated to point to his role in the policy review process in support of that argument.

But it strikes me as curious that Broten didn't apparently get out in front of inevitable questions about similarities between his platform and issues already discussed by the party - for example, by pointing back to the consultations and votes held in support of the policy review at the time he was unveiling his leadership platform. Which looks in retrospect like both a missed opportunity to speak to one of his own putative strengths, and an obvious source of potential criticism which has now materialized.

The other main development in recent weeks was Ryan Meili's proposal for a provincial Faith and Social Justice Commission - which looks noteworthy both as a means of ensuring ongoing engagement with faith groups who share common goals with the NDP, and for its accompanying statement of support from Lorne Calvert (reflecting a noteworthy step forward in encouraging past party leaders to comment on the party's current direction).

Again, I'd expect the campaigns to be fairly quiet over the next little while. But since the break in the action offers an ideal opportunity to take stock of where the candidates stand, I'll have plenty to add over the next week - so stay tuned.

On "have-not" journalism

Pay no attention to those leftist propagandists at the likes of Alberta Oil Magazine: your corporate media overlords have now decided that Saskatchewan's ascension into "have" status - previously acknowledged to have happened under the NDP in 2005 - has been retroactively delayed until 2007 for Brad Wall's political benefit. Your immediate attention to this matter is appreciated.

Two farewell hypotheticals

It's a shame that the release of the Hale report ended up coinciding with (and largely overshadowing) the last day in the Legislature for Lorne Calvert. So I'll take a moment to thank Calvert for the time and effort he's put into building his party and his province. But let's put the leadership campaign and the previous party leader in context with some idle musings about what might have been.

How different would the Saskatchewan NDP look now if Calvert hadn't stepped down, but had instead decided to lead the party through the 2011 election? Would the party have had trouble getting members motivated for another run under Calvert - or would a concerted internal renewal process have been easier without a two-year wait for a leadership race to set the party's future direction?

And where would readers rank Calvert if he were on the leadership ballot against the other current contenders?

For the record, I'd think that the leadership race has been a positive process as a whole despite the downsides which may have dominated the news lately - and there should be plenty of time for the NDP to unite behind its new leader going into 2011 and build on the momentum it's picked up over the past few months. But given the chance to include Calvert among the leadership candidates, I'd have no hesitation slotting him at or near the top of my ballot. And while his tenure as premier may not have produced quite the transformative change that some NDPers would have hoped for, whoever succeeds him will have a tough act to follow.

Leadership 2009 - Week In Review, February 14

The NDP leadership race was somewhat quieter this week than the previous few, with only a couple of developments worth highlighting.

First off, Lorne Calvert's announcement that he'll be leaving the Legislature at the end of June may subtly affect the race in a couple of ways. First, the Saskatoon Riverside seat which Calvert is vacating would seem to be an ideal fit for Ryan Meili - though it doesn't look like the nomination will go uncontested.

Perhaps more significantly, though, the announcement that Calvert won't be around to mentor a new leader could raise the stakes when it comes to leadership experience. Of course, any new leader will still be surrounded by a number of MLAs with a track record in cabinet as well as plenty of resources within the party. But a longer transition period could have helped to ease a new leader into the role - while Calvert's early departure may result in some greater concern as to whether the next leader can hit the ground running.

The second main development which I'd discussed earlier was Dwain Lingenfelter's press conference to allege political interference in SaskEnergy's gas purchasing policies. So far, the accusation has mostly played out as a sparring match between Lingenfelter and Brad Wall - but as much as the other candidates would surely prefer to stick to their own themes and narratives, they'll need to find some way to inject their own messages into media coverage if Lingenfelter can keep himself in the headlines with similar stories.

Edit: fixed title.

On meaningful options

Thanks to the better part of a month dominated by talk of Harper's trip to the Senate trough, public cynicism about the upper chamber figures to be as high as ever - with Cons riled up over the possibility of coalition appointments, and everybody else rightly pointing out the hypocrisy of Deceivin' Stephen making a record number of patronage appointments after promising to make none at all.

Which means that now may be just the time to decide whether voters would prefer to see the Senate abolished rather than preserved or turned into a source of additional gridlock. And without much fanfare so far, Lorne Calvert is offering up a means of doing just that (warning: PDF):

NDP Leader Lorne Calvert has announced he will be bringing forth an amendment to the Sask Party government's legislation regarding Senate elections.

Calvert believes an additional option should be provided to Saskatchewan voters on the issue: the abolition of the Senate altogether.

"The intention of the legislation seems to be to let Saskatchewan people have their say in the makeup of the Senate in the most democratic fashion possible", Calvert said. "The NDP believes that many people in Saskatchewan would rather see the Senate done away with altogether. Providing this option on a ballot is simply the most democratic thing to do."

Of course, the Sask Party will be able to shoot down the suggestion if it wants to limit the options available to voters in an effort to legitimize the Senate. But when even Wall's federal cousins/bosses are once again musing about abolition as one of their options in dealing with the Senate, it would take an awfully tone-deaf government to deny that possibility to Saskatchewan's voters.

So what effect would an abolition option have if included on the ballot? From my perspective, it would dovetail nicely with the current state of discussion about the Senate. There's been at least some talk to the effect that non-appointment might be the best way to get from the status quo to meaningful Senate reform of any kind. And one could hardly ask for stronger evidence that the public favours that path than an election result where "don't bother" wins out over the list of candidates.

All of which suggests that the amendment may set out an important first step toward the type of change long favoured by New Democrats. And if even the worst-case scenario is to force the Sask Party to publicly and deliberately limit the choices of the province's voters, then there's every reason to look forward to the results of Calvert's proposal.

On focus

While the main action within the Saskatchewan NDP obviously figures to involve the pending leadership race, there's still both a need and an opportunity for the party to start drawing some general battle lines for 2011. And based on the initial response to the fall throne speech, there's some reason for concern in that department.

After all, there doesn't seem to be much prospect that the NDP can make much headway with a message that the Sask Party is merely copying its policies. But that's what the first response to Wall's attack on out-of-province Crown investments sounded like:

Calvert also questioned the premier's promise of a "Saskatchewan first" investment policy for the Crowns, saying that was in place under his previous NDP government. Some of the out-of-province investments that were made also proved lucrative for Crowns, Calvert said.

It didn't take long for Calvert to deliver a stronger followup message. But the initial response is even more problematic since it at least partially undermines the point which Calvert rightly tried to make later: if the goal of the Crowns should be to invest for Saskatchewan whether or not that means investing in Saskatchewan, then the last thing the NDP should want to do is take credit for mandating the latter.

Meanwhile, another initial message to the effect that the biggest problem with Wall's tax-cut structure is that it's taking awhile to put in place looks to have virtually no long-term impact. Simply put, when voters decide who to support in 2011, the question of whether a program which doesn't meet with opposition was implemented in 2008 or 2009 isn't going to be at the top of anybody's mind.

And other lines of argument which would seem ripe for attack seem to have gone without comment. Surely Wall's pushing forward with Senate elections would make for fertile ground to restate the NDP's commitment to Senate abolition - not to mention in continuing to brand Wall as the 14th Conservative MP. But that seems to have gone completely untouched.

Fortunately, there's plenty of time to set the narrative for 2011. But for those tasked with defining the NDP's message at the moment, there's still every reason to look to the longer term in determining how the NDP responds to - and highlights - events today. And the more the NDP instead gets caught up playing things safe by pointing out minor quibbles rather than drawing real points of distinction, the more likely we'll be to miss the opportunity to remove Wall from office in 2011.

On renewal

Having mentioned my prescription for the federal New Democrats this morning, I'll note that one of the more interesting questions on the federal scene is whether a party can better build itself up through party-based planning under popular continued leadership as the NDP enjoys under Jack Layton, or whether the competitive drive of leadership candidates will do more to bring new faces and organization into the fold (which would seemingly favour the Libs if any contestants manage to move beyond the party's past supporters).

That said, it's worth noting that following Lorne Calvert's resignation, Saskatchewan's provincial NDP has to be hoping to make the latter process work. And while we'll see who emerges from a long list of contenders to run for the provincial leadership, the more important question for the party may not be who competes and wins so much as how they go about the job.

If the race is simply a matter of choosing a winner based on competition among the party's current supporters and volunteers, then what should be a great opportunity for renewal will have been entirely wasted, and the NDP figures to be in tough to challenge the Sask Party in 2011. In contrast, if the leadership contestants push for support outside the party's current base and build organizations with strong loyalties to both them and the party in the longer term, then there's a real possibility of helping to move Saskatchewan back in the right direction within the next few years.

Needless to say, I'll be hoping for the latter - and doing my best to encourage it among all the leadership candidates. And hopefully the different paths to renewal will work for both levels of the NDP.

Post-election notes

A few notes on tonight's election results...

- Obviously the outcome is disappointing for the NDP, if far from the wipeout some were predicting from a party standpoint. But while it's always tough to lose power (and in this case the progressive leadership that came with it), the NDP should have an extremely solid platform from which to put an inexperienced government under the microscope. In particular, with the swing vote apparently having taken Brad Wall at his bare word that he'd avoid doing serious damage to Saskatchewan's public sector and refuse to sign onto the TILMA, the NDP will hopefully be able to hold the Sask Party's feet to the fire to prevent any retreat from those positions.

- As for the NDP's future strategy, my initial reaction is that despite the discussion in some quarters about choosing a new leader, there's no reason at all for Lorne Calvert to step down (or for the party to push him from the helm). If Wall stumbles in office - which wouldn't be the least bit surprising - then the NDP may be best served being able to draw a contrast between an out-of-its-element Sask Party and the effective government that preceded it. And if the NDP decides it needs to renew at the top as well as within the ranks of its caucus, then there's plenty of time to make that call in a year or two to give a new leader time to settle in before 2011.

- The Sask Party seems to have forgotten to tell Wall that the campaign is over with, such that he can take at least a brief break from rapid-fire slogans. Will "Wall. Beats. Hackneyed. Phrases. To. Death." be the overriding theme of the next four years of Saskatchewan politics?

- Finally, a suggested first step for the Sask Party to appear concerned about the environment. At this point, it's long past time to put Saskatchewan Liberals on the endangered species list.

Trainwrecki

A quick post-mortem on the Saskatchewan leaders' debate.

For Calvert and Wall, the debate seems to have gone pretty much exactly as planned. Calvert was on the attack for most of the debate, and succeeded in pointing a few of the tough questions that need to be asked about the Sask Party while emphasizing a commitment to sharing Saskatchewan's wealth - though a few of his good points seem to have been lost in the open-time shouting match. Meanwhile, Wall showed signs of being a star pupil at the Stephen Harper School of Content-Free Politics, scrupulously avoiding any meaningful answers when challenged by Calvert while generally sticking to the Sask Party's script.

Which isn't to say that one of the leaders didn't manage to make an impact. But it's probably not the one that the Libs' leader was aiming for.

After starting off by managing to avoid answering a softball first question, Karwacki mostly made his presence felt as an obstacle to any meaningful discussion - remarkably managing to outdistance the other two by far in his unwillingness to allow the others to speak in what was undoubtedly a poorly-designed format. And along the way, he also managed strategic errors such as giving the NDP the opportunity to speak up for its efforts in saving jobs in Prince Albert and Meadow Lake, and taking an inexplicable stance against rural highway improvement.

At this rate, if Karwacki's still around by the next election, the Saskatchewan Libs will be begging to be excluded from the leaders' debate.

For now, though, his main impact in the campaign seems to have been to add momentum to his party's slide in the polls. Which means that if an NDP/Lib swing really is the decisive factor in Saskatchewan politics at the moment, then the Sask Party figures to be celebrating far too soon.

A call to assembly

I for one didn't see it coming, but the Saskatchewan NDP has promised to convene a Citizens Assembly if it wins next month's provincial election:

A re-elected NDP government would hold a "citizens assembly" to look at lowering the voting age, introducing fixed election dates and making other changes to democracy in Saskatchewan, party leader Lorne Calvert says.

The assembly would be made up of "randomly chosen" Saskatchewan residents who would make recommendations to the legislature, Calvert said Friday.

They would examine a number of issues, ranging from fixed election dates to voting age to voter turnout.

Calvert said the panel could also discuss the possibility of a new electoral system as an alternative to the first-past-the-post system currently in place.

I'm not sure whether the focus on issues like fixed election dates and voting ages rather than electoral systems is based primarily on Calvert's own preferences, or the (however unfair) conventional wisdom arising out of Ontario's MMP vote. But Calvert's promise itself should help reverse any perception that electoral reform is done for - particularly if the NDP wins the election in part based on the commitment.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the proposal will earn the attention it deserves - particularly given that it was made on the same day that the Sask Party unveiled its entire platform (or at least those parts which hadn't yet been leaked). But it's nonetheless remarkable for a party which has succeeded so thoroughly in the existing structure to be taking the lead in looking for ways to improve how Saskatchewan votes.

And if Calvert's move can push swing votes into the NDP column based on the prospect of an improved electoral system, then both the NDP and the province stand to benefit substantially in the long run as a result.

Universal ideas

While most of the coverage from the first day of Saskatchewan's election campaign has focused fairly narrowly on the first policy offerings from both the NDP and the Saskatchewan Party, I haven't yet seen the broader philosophies behind those platform planks receive much attention. But it looks like another issue in addition to federal/provincial relations will serve as a major point of difference between the two main contenders, as the parties are seemingly taking polar opposite views on the idea of universality in access to services (even while trying to put money toward the same issues).

Of course, the NDP's prescription drug plan figures to be the largest universal program to be brought up during the course of the campaign. And it only makes sense as an extension of universal health care to make sure that Saskatchewan residents receive relief from the fastest-rising share of health-care costs.

But with the Sask Party having not yet unveiled anything by way of health policy, the most stark contrast for now lies in the parties' respective treatment of education costs.

The NDP's promise to adopt the McCall report would result in an across-the-board tuition cut, making education more affordable to all students while they're actually enrolled at Saskatchewan universities - particularly in light of a concurrent increase in student loan limits for housing and living.

Mind you, some elements of the plan would involve some differentiation - based either on individual accomplishment (i.e. added scholarship funding) or a specific need for improved access (i.e. incentives for students from neighbourhoods of low socioeconomic status). But even the latter differentiated benefits can be classified in terms of universal access. And the obvious core of the NDP's plan is to make sure that all students are better able to afford university at the time they attend it.

In contrast, the Sask Party's education platform is aimed almost entirely at tax credits after graduation. Student debt would pile up no less quickly, and the cost of seeking a university education would be no more affordable at the time when a student actually attends school. The only difference from the status quo would be the possibility of paying any debt down more quickly after the fact.

That graduate credit is also accompanied by a promise to offer an additional credit limited solely to income earned through self-employment - despite the lack of any apparent difference in principle between the merits of self-employment and employment generally. I'd think that's a fairly curious choice, but it certainly offers a stark contrast to the NDP's more universal focus.

While education offers the most obvious example of the differing philosophies so far, it figures to be far from the only issue where the question of universality comes up. Again, health care looks to be an obvious one as well, as the Sask Party is already attacking the NDP's prescription drug plan precisely for its universality. And the NDP's focus on low utility rates also serves as an effective universal benefit which figures to be a topic of conversation.

Of course, it's always possible that the campaign could go in an entirely different direction. But the difference in views on universal access could both serve as the main point of distinction between the NDP and the Sask Party, and lead to a far more meaningful policy debate within the Saskatchewan campaign than we've seen in other provinces which have recently gone to the polls. And hopefully that's a result that would be universally well-received.

Update: And not surprisingly the Sask Party's prescription drug proposal feeds into the argument somewhat as well, clawing back the existing benefits for thousands of seniors, providing no similar plan for anybody aged 15 to 64 and adding a cap on costs only for children under 14. Though it's interesting to note that the Sask Party's means-testing for seniors wouldn't be applied to children (or their parents).

Shady dealings

A few notes on the equalization announcement yesterday by the federal and Nova Scotia Cons.

First, it's far from clear that the ultimate deal reflects any more generous offer by the federal government in order to get a deal done. Indeed, it was reported earlier this year that the federal offer at that time similarly contained no explicit downside while potentially offering an additional billion dollars over the life of the deal - double what the new deal apparently includes.

All along, the question was whether the federal government would actually stick to the deal offered by Harper. And from this angle, it still looks like MacDonald got the answer right the first time.

So what changed since the earlier offer? Obviously the federal Cons haven't done anything much to earn any additional trust in the meantime. But it seems entirely possible that MacDonald bought into the conventional wisdom (however flawed it may be) that with the Libs floundering, Harper's Cons will stay in power for some time to come - meaning that there was little prospect of a new federal government either offering a better deal, or overturning one agreed to by Harper.

Meanwhile, MacDonald likely recognized as well that the federal bargaining position wasn't about to change in his favour as long as Harper stayed in power. After all, the lone Con MP principled enough to stand up for his province had already been expelled, meaning that there was virtually no risk of in-caucus strife over the lack of a deal. Since Harper was obviously willing to pay the price in Nova Scotia seats for failing to keep the federal bargain before, there wasn't much reason to think that would change. And unlike Lorne Calvert, MacDonald hadn't shown any particular willingness to test the legal merits of his position.

As a result, MacDonald may have decided to simply take the best deal he could get on paper now in the hope that Harper (or a subsequent PM) would live up to it.

Based on the fact that the deal doesn't seem different from the previous federal offer, it's hard to give Harper much credit or blame for the fact that the deal happened. But the timing of the announcement has his fingerprints all over it.

In Atlantic Canada, the announcement figures to stop some of the bleeding following Danny Williams' successful anti-Harper campaign in Newfoundland and Labrador. (Though I have serious doubts that it'll actually improve the Cons' fortunes in Nova Scotia as some seem to think.)

And with a Saskatchewan election known to be in the cards, the deal also provides a signal to Brad Wall that Harper would very much like him to abandon any critical talk about the federal government in favour of a "Stephen Is My Sugar Daddy" strategy. Though I remain far from convinced that the result will be anything other than a backlash against both Wall and Harper.

What remains to be seen is whether MacDonald and Harper have calculated correctly in agreeing to the deal how and when they did. And it seems entirely possible that both minority governments will later regret their efforts to temporarily improve their standing now.

Wall: Patronage Is My Only Principle

In a well-timed follow-up to last night's post, Murray Mandryk notes that Brad Wall has finally found an issue where's willing to differentiate his party from the provincial NDP. But there's plenty of reason to doubt that Saskatchewan voters will buy into his call to beg for federal handouts:

While Wall said the court challenge should be pursued "if there's a chance to win this case", he seemed equally critical of the NDP government for clinging to the "have-not" equalization argument.

"Are we going to have the kind of leadership in the province any time soon that acts like it's leading a 'have' province and a province that intends to remain a 'have' province?" Wall asked last week.

Interestingly, Wall's talking points were near-identical to what came out of Harper's mouth: "What Saskatchewan needs is a government that will understand the challenge is to take advantage of that opportunity to become a 'have' province permanently, rather than try and come up with some formula that's going to pay equalization to have provinces, because there is no such formula," Harper said...

While reiterating he's been as frustrated as anybody with the Conservatives' broken promises, Wall said he's equally frustrated because he believes there was a better deal to be had for a "have" province outside the equalization formula, one that might have involved federal infrastructure spending in Saskatchewan or addressing off-reserve First Nations issues. Moreover, even though his past criticism of the broken Conservative promise has not gone over well in Ottawa, Wall hinted that his closer relationship with the federal Conservatives could help Saskatchewan secure an even better deal than the $800-million-a-year deal.

So here's the contrast between the two parties. The Calvert NDP is calling for a stable federal formula which meets the Cons' campaign promises while actually allowing the province to spend the money as it sees fit - and wants to pursue the most obvious avenue to reach that goal.

Meanwhile, Wall is looking for a mandate to make regular appearances, hat in hand, at the federal Department of Pork, in hopes that Saskatchewan can pry out a few more federal dollars based on his ideological connections. And all in the name of presenting Saskatchewan as a proud "have" province.

What's more, it's worth noting that Wall may have missed one of the most important conditions attached to the federal infrastructure funding which he seems to want to pursue. That's right: after his party has spent the past four years trying (unsuccessfully) to shed its well-deserved reputation for wanting to axe the province's public sector, it's now entirely willing to make Saskatchewan dependent on funding which is explicitly tied to P3 schemes rather than public ownership. Which could turn the campaign into even less friendly terrain for the Sask Party.

Of course, the campaign hasn't even started yet, and it could be that other issues will turn up - assuming that Wall is willing to take another stand rather than trying the safer tactic of a full Seinfeld campaign. But his current stand has the potential not only to turn the provincial debate in the NDP's favour, but also to weaken the federal Cons in the province as their own patronage gets placed in the spotlight. Which means that Wall's effort at mutual back-scratching with the Harper government may only wind up giving both exactly what they deserve.

Open-wound federalism

The Globe and Mail reports that Deceivin' Stephen has started off his summer by making it clear once again that any provincial premier who dares to call one of his bluffs won't be invited back to the table. And the Cons' pettiness seems to have resulted in an even more dangerous step than we'd known about to date:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will appeal directly today to the people in two of the three provinces that have been at loggerheads with his government over the control of resource revenues...

Neither Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald nor Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert, who publicly condemned the federal budget for including resource revenues in the equalization formula, have been given formal notice of the visits...

Mr. Calvert caught a plane to Iqaluit yesterday to attend a conference of western premiers and will be out of his province when the biofuels announcement is made at a grain terminal near the Gardiner Dam.

There has been little or no communication between his officials and the Prime Minister since Saskatchewan decided to ask the courts whether the budget violates the constitutional right of a province to own its non-renewable natural resources and whether it contravenes principles of fairness.

Mr. Calvert says the fact that resource revenue has not been removed from the equalization formula, as Mr. Harper promised during the last election campaign, will cost an estimated $800-million annually to Saskatchewan...

Mr. Calvert accused the federal Conservatives of using this type of funding as a dodge on the equalization issue. And "one would have liked a certain sense of prior knowledge of the Prime Minister's visit," he said. "It doesn't help relationships when we're surprised."

What's most striking about the above is that the Cons' strategy appears to have progressed well past the point of merely snubbing premiers for individual events. Indeed, with Calvert out of the province attending a well-publicized conference, the Cons could plainly have informed Saskatchewan's government of today's announcement without any risk that Calvert himself would attend.

But apparently, based on Saskatchewan's acceptance of Harper's own invitation to sue, the Cons are simply refusing to communicate with Saskatchewan as a matter of course. Which can only confirm just how disinterested the Cons are in listening to Saskatchewan - as well as hinting at how far the Cons might go in dealing with all but the most friendly of groups if they ever managed to win a majority.

Update: Greg has more on Harper's shunning tactic.

On real consultations

Others have noted that the TILMA had officially taken effect in Alberta and B.C. But it's still a wide open question as to how much further the anti-government pact will spread - and an upcoming set of consultations in Saskatchewan may lead to a significant turning point one way or the other:

The NDP government plans to hold public consultations on the controversial Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) between Alberta and British Columbia, Government Relations Minister Harry Van Mulligen said this week.

Van Mulligen hopes the provincial cabinet will make a decision on whether Saskatchewan should join TILMA in about three months, he said...

Van Mulligen said Thursday the government had completed an "exhaustive internal examination" of the deal.

That includes an economic impact study done by the Conference Board of Canada as well as a review of the effects it will have on the government and public policy.

"We now want to set the stage for a public dialogue on TILMA and, generally, internal trade. But we have not yet concluded the structure for that dialogue.

I expect this will be something that will be sorted out in the next week or so," he said.

Possible actions include public hearings and invitations for submissions.

It's somewhat disappointing for the provincial government to be backtracking from Calvert's previous concern about the TILMA. But the question now is whether Saskatchewan's public will be able to mount a strong enough case against the TILMA to outweigh the fact-free rantings in favour of the agreement.

And lest we forget, there have been loads of those. Here's a quick review of the most-often-heard spin so far:

- "The TILMA requires harmonization to the higher standard, so nobody's regulations will be weakened." (It doesn't. In fact, it encourages zero regulation across the board in the long term, and doesn't say how current regulations should be reconciled in the meantime.)

- It'll bring about untold billions in benefits. (If one isn't too concerned with actually evaluating its effects plausibly.)

- "If we don't like what it says, we can just stack arbitration panels to pretend it says something else". (Seriously.)

- "The TILMA will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% while creating 14,000 new jobs. The TILMA supports our troops. The TILMA is love." (We haven't heard it yet, but can it be far behind?)

If there's a bright side to the sheer absurdity of the arguments made in favour of the TILMA so far, it's that they should be easily knocked down by the municipalities, unions, and other citizens who want Saskatchewan to maintain its ability to act in the public interest. And with any luck - and plenty of effort to try to counterbalance the TILMA's place in the province's right-wing noise machine - that'll be the end result three months from now.

Update: How silly of me to forget the claim that Canada's future well-being will be defined by the colour of margarine in Quebec. But Stephen Taylor is sure to bring it up as part of Macleans' predictable pro-TILMA love-in. Can somebody please wake up Maude Barlow?

(Edit: fixed wording.)

A look at the ledger

Since Scott has largely pegged my reaction to the Cons' budget, I'll shift to relatively-neutral observer mode to examine who stands to win and lose politically as a result:

Winners: Quebec Solidaire, Quebec Greens
All three main Quebec parties spent today rushing to support the budget - and none figures to have won any great advantage by doing so. But the door seems to be wide open to any of the upstart parties which takes the opportunity to pursue an anti-Ottawa strategy.

Loser: Bloc Quebecois
I'll have to admit to start off that I've always had trouble seeing what the Bloc brought to the table to justify its number of seats. But after giving a pass to two consecutive Con budgets, it seems the Bloc is lowering the bar even further: not only is it structurally unable to form government to implement policy of its own, it isn't even making any real effort to influence the policy of the parties who do hold power.

Mind you, there is one caveat. If by some chance the PQ pulls out a majority government, then the Bloc will presumably find a renewed focus in the possibility of another referendum. But if not, then having endorsed the Cons' federal/provincial funding platform and with no more opportunity to campaign in opposition to Lib scandals, it's hard to see what useful purpose the Bloc could serve going forward. Which means that Duceppe's acceptance of the budget may well operate as the Bloc's death knell.

Winner: Lorne Calvert
The Saskatchewan NDP gets somewhat more money to work with, yet also gets to continue rightly slamming the Harper government (and its Sask Party proxies) for a broken equalization promise. While it would have been better for the province generally for the Cons to have kept up their side of the bargain (except to the extent that might have helped the Sask Party), the result couldn't have been much better for a government which can get by without the added money.

Loser: The Auto Industry
While the Cons' plan to create incentives toward more-efficient vehicles is a plus in general, it's striking that Flaherty doesn't seem to have any qualms about kicking the automotive industry while it's already down by planning to take in more money through the inefficiency surtax than will be provided in incentives for efficient vehicles. And while I hope the long-term effect will merely be to push the industry toward producing more efficient vehicles more quickly, the effect could be to make the current trouble in the industry last longer and get worse than it would otherwise have to.

Incidentally, this should also serve as a ready-made answer when the Cons try to accuse the Libs' "carbon budget" of being a tax grab, since it's their own auto plan that actually results in at a demonstrable cost to industry (and concurrent benefit to government coffers).

Winner: Astroturf Groups
It may be a subtle change for the Cons to remove the capital gains tax from donations of publicly listed securities to private foundations - and one which looks good on its face. But while some better-meaning people may use this to benefit legitimate charities, it's all too likely that the change will also be used to facilitate additional donations to the right-wing noise machine.

Loser: Public Ownership
It didn't make the headlines, but a full $6 billion of infrastructure spending is targeted toward P3-style gateways and border crossing, and Jim Flaherty's vision of an office dedicated solely to promoting P3s will come to fruition. Of course the winners will be the contractors involved...while the public treasury will be a long-term loser as well.

A timeline of distortion

Friday, March 9: Lorne Calvert highlights the fact that Stephen Harper did not invite him to participate in an agricultural spending announcement:

(T)he Saskatchewan government said it hasn't been told why Harper is visiting Saskatoon, raising questions about the relationship between Ottawa and the province.

"I've been a bit surprised by the arrival of the prime minister (Friday), we had no advance notice of this," said Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert.

"I have no idea what he intends to announce, if he is here to make an announcement. I have no idea whether it's to be on environment or equalization or agriculture or research."

Friday, March 9: Harper explains why Calvert was not invited to the announcement:

When asked yesterday why Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert was not on hand, Mr. Harper pointed out that this was a national, not federal-provincial program.

He also said joint initiatives are being discussed -- and signed -- with a number of provinces, but Ottawa hasn't come to an agreement with Saskatchewan on several issues, including climate change and patient waiting-time guarantees.

Monday, March 12: Macleans rewrites history:

Unlike Ontario's Dalton McGuinty and Alberta's Ed Stelmach, both of whom were at Harper's side when he announced new funding in their provinces, Saskatchewan premier Lorne Calvert declined to attend the event. Calvert and Harper have been nursing a disagreement over the Prime Minister's intention to include a portion of non-renewable natural resource revenues in a revamped equalization formula.

Needless to say, there couldn't be a better result for Harper: not only was he able to exclude Calvert from any PR benefit resulting from the announcement based on his own arbitrary standards, but his fawning media has managed to wrongly put the blame for the exclusion on Calvert - thereby benefitting Harper's provincial lapdogs. And if reality is once again a casualty in Harper's war for political power...well, so much the better for the Cons.

On building strategies

The Libs were forced last week to acknowledge their failed attempts to poach current and former NDP MPs in order to meet their female-candidate targets. But while the Libs were working the backrooms, another of the NDP's most prominent figures made some noises about attracting centre-left support from the ground up:

Uniting Canada's left-of-centre political parties has leapt from being a suitable subject for idle chat over cups of fair-trade coffee to a matter for serious discussion by a pillar of the New Democratic Party. Lorne Calvert, Saskatchewan's NDP premier, a guarded politician hardly given to rash speculation, sketched the case for bringing New Democrats and Liberals together in a wide-ranging conversation with Maclean's editors and writers. Asked about the strength of the NDP brand nationally, Calvert volunteered that Canadian politics might be evolving toward something closer to the two-party U.S. model. "If that is the case, where is the natural party to bring together the centre and left-of-centre?" he said. "I think an argument certainly can be made that the New Democrats may be the natural place for that coalescing to happen."

Calvert did not propose formal steps for bringing together New Democrats and Liberals under a single banner. "I don't know if I'm here to propose merger," he said. Still, he noted that the uniting of the right, when Stephen Harper orchestrated the marriage of the old Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties, changed Canadian politics. And the premier made the case that the NDP need not be viewed as a junior partner in any future move to join forces with the Liberals. He praised Jack Layton, the party's federal leader, for broadening the NDP's base. "So there may be an opportunity," Calvert said, "for the New Democratic Party to capture some of that which is left-of-centre and build on it."

Now, I disagree strongly with Calvert's apparent view that Canada's current direction is, or should be, toward a U.S.-style two-party model. And indeed the current weakness of the U.S. Dems (even while holding congressional majorities) should serve as a cautionary signal rather than a model to be emulated by any of Canada's opposition parties.

That said, though, it's noteworthy that prominent Dippers - first Jamey Heath and now Calvert - are publicly making the case for a grassroots move toward the NDP as a governing alternative. And with Dion clearly having trouble winning the support of either his party or voters at large, the door may soon be open for the NDP to emerge as the leading force keeping PMS at bay.