Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Mike Pearl discusses the climate despair of people understandably having difficulty working toward a longer term which is utterly neglected in our most important social decisions. But Macleans' feature on climate change includes both Alanna Mitchell's take on what a zero-emission future might look like, and an editorial calling for far more action to get there than either the Libs or Cons is willing to even suggest (let alone deliver).

- Meanwhile, Gregory Meyer offers a reminder as to how methane leaks make natural gas a non-starter when it comes to maintaining a liveable climate. And Nerilie Abram, Matthew England and Matt King point out the dangers of instability in giant Antarctic ice sheets.

- But John McMurtry discusses how the Koch Brothers and other plutocrats are trying to buy public ignorance to ensure that environmentally destructive plans are permitted. And David Climenhaga writes that Jason Kenney is looking to distract from any issue worthy of public discussion by funding conspiracy theorists to write fiction about environmental activists, while Graham Thomson also calls out the lack of any rational basis for Kenney's McCarthyite project.

- David Macdonald offers a primer on tax fairness for Canadians examining their options in this fall's federal election. And the Canadian Press analyzes how British Columbia's anti-speculation tax has collected $115 million for a fund dedicated to affordable housing.

- Finally, Jolson Lim reports on the decision of human rights advocates and labour representatives to resign from a Trudeau-appointed advisory body which was falling short of offering anything remotely resembling corporate responsibility.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Simon Ducatel discusses how wealth inequality is at the root of continued poverty and deprivation, while Charles Plante notes that anti-poverty strategies in Canada currently serve mostly to capture credit for existing policies rather than to guide the development of new ones.

- Grace Blakely points out the role that capital controls should play in ensuring that the wealthy pay their fair share toward social development and increased equality. And Duncan Cameron writes about Olivier Blanchard's recognition that public debt is entirely acceptable as long as it results from worthwhile investments.

- Cindy Blackstock highlights how the continued lack of progress on Indigenous child welfare is entirely the result of governments failing to act on policies which they know to be effective.

- Andrew Longhurst makes the case for a move away from fee-for-service payment of physicians.

- Finally, Rick Smith challenges Macleans' attempt to equate the left and right in their contributions to Canada's political scene:

On all of the major questions facing humanity today—climate change, inequality, defending and deepening pluralism in an age of globalization —the left is working to find answers. True, in some areas we are still coming up short. For all the achievements of left movements in the 20th century, from the welfare state to universal healthcare to progressive labour legislation, inequality remains a deep and abiding fact of Canadian life. Despite successfully making the environment a major issue of public concern, there is still much work to be done if we are to avert the coming climate crisis. Racism and the discriminatory treatment of racialized Canadians are still tragic realities, human rights and equity laws notwithstanding.

Challenges like these and the moral necessity of tackling them is precisely what animates today’s left in Canada and abroad. Yes, their urgency may inspire impassioned, even angry critiques of the political status quo and what can sometimes be difficult, needlessly fractious debates within our own ranks. Some believe this makes the left and right fellow travelers amid the ongoing crisis of liberal democracy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
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While prominent left-wing figures like Bernie Sanders or Jagmeet Singh indeed give expression to anger, its targets are corporations who exploit their workers or extremely wealthy people who don’t pay their fair share of taxes. The ultimate goal of this anger is to overcome visible injustices and make material gains for working people, young and old, across all sections of society. The same can be said for groups like Black Lives Matter or #MeToo, which are giving constructive expression to justified anger at discrimination and bigotry on both sides of the border.

The right is not, to put it kindly, either doing the same or searching for answers to the major challenges facing our societies today. In conservative parties across the country, climate change denialism (or its close cousin foot-dragging-ism) runs rampant—as evidenced by the recent actions of the Ford government in Ontario and the persistent hostility of the conservative movement to common-sense environmental policies such as cleaning up electricity production, or electric vehicle mandates or carbon pricing.

...
With the stakes being as high as they are in politics today, debates will inevitably prove divisive and difficult. But in their attempts to grapple with our anxious political moment, pundits and commentators alike should be careful not to conflate individuals and movements fighting injustice with those pursuing it as their animating principle.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Public Interest Alberta takes a closer look at that province's rhetoric about taxes, and finds that in fact most Albertans pay more income tax than they would under the more fair and progressive systems applied in other province:

“Albertans who believe the myth that we pay the lowest taxes in Canada will be surprised to see that they are paying more income tax than if they lived in BC or Ontario. At the same time, people in Alberta with very high incomes are paying tens of thousands less in income tax than in other parts of Canada,” said Bill Moore-Kilgannon, Executive Director of Public Interest Alberta.

An Albertan with a taxable income of $1 million will pay $41,095 less than if they lived in BC and $75,157 less than if they lived in Ontario. However, an Albertan with a taxable income of $70,000 will pay $1434 more than if they lived in BC and $919 more than if they lived in Ontario.

- Andrew Jackson rebuts a few of the zombie arguments against higher minimum wages. And Scott Clark and Peter DeVries highlight not only why there's ample reason for concern about the federal budget, but also why Jim Flaherty's obsession with austerity and naive faith in the confidence fairy may cause yet more economic problems in the years to come.

- Meanwhile, Chantal Hebert wonders whether the Cons' move to claw back billions of dollars for EI training will lead to a backlash from the provinces involved. And that's doubly so given the question of whether the Cons' purpose has anything at all to do with achieving results, or whether it's simply a matter of wanting to be able to engage in another round of gratuitous self-promotion.

- Geoffrey Stevens and the Macleans editorial board both make the case that it's time to take a serious look at abolishing the Senate.

- Finally, Frances Russell contrasts Preston Manning's one-time concern with building a party and a movement which would be broadly acceptable to the Canadian public against his current embrace of Ron Paul and other dubious figures.

Thursday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your day.

- Leftdog points out that the Wall government's regressive ideology is doing exactly what it usually does - resulting in workers losing ground as a result of stagnant wages and skyrocketing costs even as billions of dollars get funnelled to big business in the name of "growth".

- Meanwhile, Stephen Harper makes it abundantly clear that he'll happily pollute anything that doesn't fight back if it makes a few more corporate bucks.

- Macleans comments on the utter pointlessness of the Cons' dumb-on-crime approach:

The obvious result of these new rules will be to create a flood of Canadians into the prison system—many first-time offenders. If there was evidence that filling prisons with minor criminals was a successful method for fighting crime, then this scenario might make some sense. But such an approach clearly hasn’t worked in the United States, despite decades of effort. In fact, many states are now emptying their jails for budgetary reasons.

It is also worth noting that as a political device, the tough-on-crime omnibus bill is starting to look a bit long in the tooth. Recall that in 2008, the then-minority government of Stephen Harper packaged five separate crime bills into its Tackling Violent Crime Act and rammed it through Parliament as a confidence issue. Now, after three years of evidence that the violent crime rate is falling precipitously—and with cops in many cities forced to spend their shifts running speed traps and busting pot-smoking mothers—the government is simply repeating itself for reasons of political expediency.

Serious crime requires a serious response—there is no debate there. But we also need to remember that the iconic statue of justice holds a scale in her hand for a reason: justice requires balance.

- Finally, in commenting on Le Bon Jack, Michael Valpy writes about what Canada's election results really mean:

When polls from the past federal election are closely analyzed, what shows up is that Mr. Harper’s Conservatives were elected by a lot of old people — people over the age of 45 whose electoral participation rate is between 60 and 80 per cent, climbing higher as they climb to meet their Maker. People under the age of 45 were powerfully anti-Conservative but at best only about 40 per cent of them voted. And if they had voted in the same proportion as the over-45s, there would not have been a Conservative majority; there probably wouldn’t have been a Conservative minority. What likely we might have got is an NDP-led coalition.

So then let’s suppose that half, at least half, of the electorate are powerfully opposed to Mr. Harper’s neo-liberalism, which is what the polls suggest. Let’s suppose they’re more in tune with Canada’s historic Red Toryism, the political culture that led to, in the words of philosopher George Grant (Michael Ignatieff’s uncle, although Mr. Ignatieff didn’t like his thinking) “a country which had a strong sense of the common good … that was possible under the individualism of the capitalist dream.” We certainly know this is the case in Quebec. We certainly know that younger Canadians, and even a significant chunk of older Canadians, have a strong sense of the common good and don’t like the contemporary conservative ideology of the individual.

Without Mr. Layton — without Jack, le bon Jack — it does not mean Canadians opposed to Mr. Harper’s neo-liberalism are simply going to go elsewhere or become less engaged with their democracy. It doesn’t mean Quebeckers are going to abandon their fling with the NDP.
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Mr. Layton can accurately be seen as the catalyst, not the seducer, both of Quebec’s re-engagement with the country and of a debate within the whole country about its political values.

On ready responses

Aside from the thoroughly ineffective spin from competing political parties, the other factor that's seen as having any potential to derail the NDP's national surge is the increased scrutiny on the party's platform. But Jack Layton took exactly the questions we'd expect to see on that point from Macleans' editors and writers - and it's hard to see anything in the answers that does anything other than confirm that the NDP is offering a responsible option for change:

Q. Part of the way you say you’d pay for the new spending in your platform is by cracking down on offshore tax avoidance. You say that will eventually net the government $3 billion a year. But Canada and other countries have been trying for years to prevent this sort of illegal tax dodging. What makes you think you can make big progress fast?

A. By being determined and by putting in resources into the Canada Revenue Agency, which is had its resources cut as opposed to increased. If the CRA was a business, any CEO would be saying, look at the rate of return. Why aren’t we exploiting that business opportunity? Well you’re dealing with the rich and powerful, and maybe that’s an issue. That’s not an issue for me. I think that we should be trying to recover those funds and I think if it were done aggressively we could achieve those kind of targets.

We’ve also said, however, that in our platform, spending proposals need to be always analyzed against the fiscal capacity at the moment. That comes from the great traditions of Tommy Douglas administrations, Roy Romanow administrations. We’ve taken the same approach to it, and we’re taken modest steps, I think you probably may agree, compared to some past NDP platforms. We’re talking modest, practical steps when it comes to these different policy areas.

Q. So you’re if you weren’t able to get those revenue streams you wouldn’t do the spending.

A. That is precisely how we constructed our platform.

Q. Do you anticipate any reduction in business investment as a result of raising corporate tax rates?

A. It’s difficult to know. I know there’s predictions of doom and gloom by some, but our view is that we have to keep our tax rate competitive with the US, but it does not make sense to go dramatically go below where the Americans are.

Q. But do you model in any reduction in investment?

A. We anticipate that there could be some protests, maybe that would translate into some changes. But I believe that is counterbalanced by some of our platform, for example, calling an investment on investment in infrastructure in cities. And when you look at decisions to locate head offices, and to locate economic activities, the corporate tax rate is by no means the only economic marker. Quality of life, infrastructure, transportation capacity, all of these kind of things. If you’ve got good and affordable housing, then a place becomes more attractive. It’s getting the right mix really of policies, and I think we don’t have that right mix when it comes to Stephen Harper.

Q. As part of your promise to set up a cap and trade system to cut greenhouse gas emissions, you book $3.6 billion in revenues this year, 2011-12, coming from the sale of carbon emission rights. How could you possibly get a cap and trade system up so fast?

A. It would be tough, it would take some real determination, but we haven’t had anything like the determination that’s needed. We saw some real determination in some U.S. states, things were made to happen relatively quickly. In fact, there’s a system up and functioning with some American states that we could hook up to. Those discussions were well under way but we had zero enthusiasm, to put it mildly, from our national government. I think things could be made to happen a lot more quickly.

Harper is a Dirty Word

And I for one think it's about time Macleans governed itself accordingly.

Just wondering

Macleans apparently feels the need to set up an experiment as to the relative effects of stimulus vs. austerity - presumably on the basis it doesn't like the comparisons already in progress. But is it too much to ask that one of the options actually involve some actual stimulus?

Monday Afternoon Links

- Vaughn Palmer notes that while the HST may have been the issue that's permanently torpedoed Gordan Campbell, it's far from the only issue where the B.C. Libs are effectively thumbing their noses at the province:

(T)he rest of the costs laid out in Friday's 20-page report (on the Olympics") were not regarded as part of staging the Games, and thus were "outside the envelope."

The $48-million Olympic Secretariat, for instance. Who would think that was an Olympic cost? Not the B.C. Liberals. Outside the envelope.

Or the five giant rings in Coal Harbour, placed there at a cost of -- I'm not making this up -- half a million dollars per ring. Hansen left them outside the envelope as well. Ditto for such exercises as the Games-Time Celebrations ($14 million), the Look of the Games ($1 million), the Torch Relay Community Grant Program ($4 million), the Torch Relay Expansion ($4 million), Games Town and Games Kids and the Road to 2010 ($2 million), the B.C./ Canada pavilions at the you-knowwhats in Turin and Beijing ($17 million), the never-an-Olympic pavilion at the Vancouver Art Gallery ($6 million), the B.C. International Media Centre for an event to be named later ($3 million), the One-Year Countdown Celebration ($1 million) and the Robson Square Celebration Site ($15 million.)

All those, Hansen stuffed into a separate $160-million envelope as costs of "marketing, hosting, celebration and community engagement activities."

Marketing what? Hosting what? Celebrating what? Not the Olympics apparently.
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Only the must gullible government supporters believed (previous statements that the Olympics would only cost $600 million). People recognized at the time that Campbell and Hansen were fudging the budget. Observers will likely dismiss the latest update as a less-than-complete cost accounting as well.
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Today, when the Games are widely regarded as a success (and I say that having opposed them), the day for quibbling over the cost of staging them is long past.

So I was thinking as I listened to the Hansen press conference Friday: If this is how the Liberals handle a triumph, no wonder they are having so much trouble managing a genuine fiasco like the harmonized sales tax.

- It's for the best that SaskPower's refrigerator recycling program has received loads of public interest. But the fact that the program has run out of funding is particularly galling in light of the goal involved: is it really the best environmental message to tell people to hold onto their old, inefficient appliances in hopes that the program will resurface in years to come?

- The latest Angus Reid leadership polling is interesting enough in its well-reported findings that Jack Layton is the only federal leader identified in positive terms. But it's even more noteworthy that Layton also has virtually no negative associations attached to him: of the nine negative terms included in the survey, Layton is at the head of the pack (i.e. carrying a lowest association) for seven of them, and finishes in actual or effective ties for second behind Harper on the other two. All of which is to say that if the Cons' idea of scaremongering is to suggest that Layton might someday hold power, then I'll strongly encourage them to keep on doing what they're doing.

- Finally, Douglas Bell rightly slams Macleans for its embarrassing G20 editorial:

That last line is as sweet a piece of editorial counter-programming as you’ll read this week or any other. That said it’s remarkable, at least to my eyes, that the national weekly news magazine (it is still a news magazine, right?), on this issue at least, resembles Pravda circa 1954. The editorial that accompanies the cover line reads as though it were written by some central committee in charge of the Politburo justifying the Lithuanian deportations of that era.

“The police should be commended for their vow to pursue any and all protesters associated with the vandalism. Merely detaining and releasing violent hoodlums is not a sufficient response to the threat they pose to civil society. The protection of free speech and assembly can only exist when there is proper respect for the rule of law. Legitimate protest acknowledges the existence of state authority while providing a different point of view. The same is true with civil disobedience. What we saw over the weekend, however, had nothing constructive to offer society. It was simply opportunistic chaos. It is thus imperative that we find and punish everyone responsible for this embarrassing period of disorder.”

Notice the nifty conflation of “vandals” and “embarrassing period of disorder”? And that bit about “legitimate protest acknowledging state authority?” Oy. Orwell would have a field day.

No slant here, nosiree

Following up on this post, Macleans offers up Exhibit A as to how the media is working to ensure public disinterest in an election campaign. (At least, assuming this isn't followed by a "what's the biggest upside to a federal election?" poll - and I'm not holding my breath on that one.)

(Edit: fixed wording.)

Just wondering...

For at least a few years, the media has regularly (and validly) complained that question period in the House of Commons is almost entirely a matter of show rather than substance. And in more recent times, a new problem has surfaced in the form of cutbacks limiting the amount of content that media outlets are able to cover.

Based on that combination, it seems downright bizarre that anybody would be assigning more resources to chronicling the goings-on in question period - particularly when the full proceedings in Parliament are televised and get transcribed as a matter of public record within a day anyway. But that seems to be the trend lately, as two blogs and a Twitter feed from major media outlets are now covering exactly the same events with barely a hint of difference in content.

Now, it may be that the current process is simply a matter of determining which outlet will ultimately win out as the main source of immediate coverage - or that the outlets involved see enough difference in content to justify having their own voice in the House of Commons. But am I the only one who thinks we'd be a lot better served if Canada's top political reporters were able to spend more of their time uncovering matters which would otherwise go unseen, rather than simply trying to be first in line to document a kabuki theatre performance?

More false expertise

When the coalition to make Parliament work first formed, CTV was quick to provide "expert" analysis consisting solely of Con partisans. And it looks like other media outlets are continuing the same pattern of allowing Harper mouthpieces to present opinions and talking points as neutral commentary.

First, there's the inexplicable decision by CanWest to give Garry Chipeur's opinion any credence as a declaration of constitutional convention - notwithstanding both Chipeur's obvious partisan bias, and the fact that his opinion rests on the assumption that the only actual precedents on the powers of the Governor-General should be ignored.

Then, there's the Hill Times' piece on lobbying, which features Tim Powers - yes, the same one who already delivers a steady stream of Con talking points to a Globe and Mail blog - singing the praises of prorogation and bashing the coalition while adding nothing of substance on the topic at hand.

And most glaringly of all, there's Macleans' apparent decision to offer a prime blog spot to the Cons' propagandist-in-chief - apparently out of concern that the informative blogging of Kady O'Malley, Aaron Wherry and others needed to be counterbalanced by unadulterated Con spin.

Needless to say, the Cons couldn't ask for much more generous treatment than to have their talking heads presented as the equal of people who actually offer original points of view and informed commentary rather than merely reading off a Harper cheat sheet. But those of us who would prefer not to see the media turned into a subsidiary arm of the Harper communications department have ample reason for concern.

Never enough now

Shorter Macleans response to the Canadian Human Rights Commission's dismissal of a complaint against it:
Sure, it's well and good that we were found to be on the right side of the law. But is it really too much to ask that someone declare us to be above the law altogether?

On intelligent coverage

I've noted many times before that one of the largest problems with most mainstream coverage of politics is that it generally fails to distinguish between substance and spin (or even outright nonsense). With that in mind, let's give due credit to Aaron Wherry for contrasting Dawn Black's substantive questions on Afghanistan with the embarrassing non-responses provided by Peter MacKay (and other assorted hijinks):

(W)hile the buffoons were basking in their bons mots, the Speaker called upon the honourable member for New Westminster-Coquitlam and up rose the NDP's Dawn Black.

"Mr. Speaker, Afghans are increasingly concerned with the mounting civilian death toll," she explained. "This week the Afghan senate asked foreign forces to put an end to the hunting and the search and destroy approach. Last week President Karzai said the civilian death toll is something his government can no longer accept. Will the government acknowledge the serious concerns of the Afghan government and change course, just as Afghan officials and the Canadian public are demanding?"

Now, as the New Democrat defence critic, Dawn Black isn't likely allowed much room for improvisation. Her agenda is fairly obvious. But that aside, this seemed a fairly intelligent and well-meaning query.

We can perhaps debate who is or is not being beaten with electrical cords, what the Canadian military has to do with that and what can be done in a foreign country where the issue of jurisdiction and responsibility is the stuff of legal briefs. But it is difficult to dispute that in military conflicts, innocent people - that is to say, those who are not actively trying to facilitate the killing of our guys - are often unduly harmed. And even the most coldly practical among us must concede that unwarranted death and destruction do not generally endear an occupying force to its occupied nation, nor fill the homeside with patriotism. This is, then, a reasonable concern.

So up came Peter MacKay. "With respect to international security assistance force, it is a UN-mandated NATO mission," the Foreign Affairs Minister explained. "We are all aware of that. We know that the operations are conducted with the consent of the Afghan authorities under a democratically-elected government in Afghanistan. NATO operations are conducted jointly, alongside Afghan national forces."

This seemed a fine way of saying, "Hey, we aren't the only ones who periodically blow up women, children and well-meaning old people."

Dawn Black pressed on. "Mr. Speaker, 90 civilian deaths in the last two weeks is something to take very seriously. The Conservative government cannot tell us anything about what is happening with Afghan detainees. It cannot give us a straight answer about the duration of the mission. Canadians have clearly lost confidence in the Minister of National Defence and the government's handling of the war. If the Government of Afghanistan does ask Canada and NATO to change their tactics, will the government do so?"

Setting aside the debatability of several assumptions therein, this too seemed a reasonable question.

Here came MacKay's response. "What we know very well is when it comes to the mission in Afghanistan, the members of the NDP are sheep in sheep's clothing."

One assumes the Foreign Affairs Minister was trying to be smart. One might subsequently suggest that the Buffoon from Bourassa may want to save a chair at the next club meeting.

Now, it could be that the focus (along with a relatively similar contrast the previous day) will be the exception rather than the rule. And indeed, it does seem clear that the story about some MPs providing more substance than others is only being told as a matter of contrast when a real policy discussion immediately precedes or follows the very worst of the worst - thus offering at least equal time and notoriety to those who stand out for their lack of substance.

But the more attention there is to the difference between MPs who are using their public platform to deal with real issues and those who see the House of Commons as a place where, truth, decorum and intelligent thought are all optional, the more likely Canadians are to ask why we don't have more of the former. And hopefully that kind of discussion will be both continued in Wherry's coverage, and picked up by others as well.

(Edit: fixed label.)

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.