Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Community Food Centres Canada highlights the need for social assistance benefits to keep up with the cost of living, while noting that Ontario (among other jurisdictions) has fallen well behind in that task:

It's been far too long since social assistance rates have been viewed through the lens of whether anyone can actually survive with dignity on them. Under Mike Harris's "Common Sense Revolution," social assistance rates were slashed by 21.6 per cent based on no criteria other than that government should spend less, that people deserved less, and that this approach would resonate with the public. Since then, rates have only inched up by tiny increments, never reaching anything close to what they were before the cuts.

In 2009, staff at The Stop Community Food Centre developed an online calculator as part of their Do the Math campaign. The campaign called for the public to input into the calculator the minimum amount of money they'd need to cover basic living expenses each. On average, people estimated that a single person in Ontario would need $1,400 to make it through the month -- more than double what people on social assistance actually receive, and still far below the poverty line.
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At Community Food Centres Canada, our concern starts with food and food insecurity. But we understand something that governments of recent years have not acknowledged -- that food is intimately linked with all other budget items. The calculation of social assistance rates has to take into account the cost of housing, food and all other personal needs. Because when there's not enough money, food is the first to go. And when people go without food or turn to food banks, their health and well-being takes a serious hit.

We should care about this simply out of a sense of justice and empathy, of course, but there are also economic consequences: the University of Toronto's PROOF project on household food insecurity has estimated that health-care costs for food-insecure people are between 76 per cent and 121 per cent higher than those of adults who are food secure.

We applaud the fact that the Liberal government has a number of initiatives aimed at improving income security in Ontario, including a promising basic income pilot. But planning for and implementing this pilot will take time. The government needs to act now to fix a fundamental gap in the social assistance system, and help Ontario's poorest residents. We've been beggaring too many of our fellow citizens for too long, preventing them from having their basic needs met at a vulnerable time in their lives, and therefore from having a good shot at healthy and successful futures. Where is the common decency -- or common sense -- in that?

- Marc Lee makes the case for a progressive property tax as a first step toward putting idle wealth to work in the public interest. And Mark Leier reviews George Lakey's Viking Economics as setting out a useful model for a more equitable society.

- Preston Mulligan reports that Nova Scotia is paying $85.9 million to buy schools previously leased under a P3 model after a first-hand lesson in the costs of privatization. And D.C. Fraser reports on the Saskatchewan NDP's rightful observation that the Wall government's apparent plans to privatize Crowns would result in substantial revenue leakage to the federal government.

- Fiona Harvey points out that the greenhouse gas emission reductions promised at Paris fall far short of actually reaching the goal of avoiding catastrophic global warming. And Keith Stewart discusses the futility of Justin Trudeau's attempts to stay on the fence when it comes to fully tackling climate change. 

- Finally, Laurel Collins notes that the Libs' attempts to downplay broad support for proportional representation are contradicted by the strong views expressed through their electoral reform consultation process. And Marie-Danielle Smith reports on Maryam Monsef's admission that she and the Libs are carrying a preference on a new electoral model which may bear no resemblance to what's acceptable to the public or to other political actors.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- The Star's editorial board writes that while we can do more to provide supports to make workers less dependent on a single job, we shouldn't pretend there's nothing we can do to improve working conditions. And Lana Payne reminds Morneau and the Libs that there's nothing inevitable about increasingly precarious work:

Precarious and insecure work is not inevitable. Changing this outcome is also not impossible.

How can government create the conditions for good jobs to grow?

A $15-an-hour minimum wage, including in the federal sector, would help tens of thousands of workers. The federal Liberals could do that tomorrow simply by introducing a piece of legislation.

Let’s start with a committee — an advisory committee on ending precarious work. Its job will be to recommend to the federal government ways and means it can make a difference in the working lives of young people by taking the problem of precarious work head on.

Let’s get some ideas out there. In fact there are already tons of ideas being generated by unions, workers’ action groups, advocacy organizations, labour market economists and others who believe good jobs, stable jobs are critical to lifting people up. Let’s look at the incredible work already done in Ontario around the changing workplace review.

We could also do as Sen. Diane Bellemare is suggesting and have a national conversation on full employment.

Let’s not assume that young people are destined to be the most educated cohort in history, but will be worse off than their parents are because we have given up.

- Andrew Jackson offers his take on the Libs' apparent plans to fund massive amounts of P3 infrastructure through a private bank, and concludes it would do nothing to assist the public interest.

- Gary Mason discusses how British Columbia's lax fund-raising rules (which mirror Saskatchewan's) represent an affront to democracy. Justin Ling reports on the federal Libs' constant pay-for-play fund-raisers, while Robert Fife and Steven Chase report on a much-needed investigation into the practice. And Martin Regg Cohn notes that the Ontario Libs' reaction to a provincial consensus that pay-for-play should be illegal has to go on one last multi-million dollar corporate shakedown spree.

- Finally, Fair Vote Canada highlights how the results of Parliament's electoral reform consultations are strongly in favour of a shift to proportional representation. But Alison finds yet another galling example of the Libs - in this case Maryam Monsef - trying to pretend otherwise by disqualifying PR supporters from any conversation.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Peter Mazereeuw reports on the growing opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership which may result in it never coming into force. And Jerry Dias reminds us why we should be glad if that movement wins out over the corporate forces who assembled it behind closed doors:

(T)he far more insidious part of the deal has nothing to do with trade or tariffs at all.

It is the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system that would give corporations the right to sue governments for passing laws that hurt their ability to earn a profit -- even if those laws are in the public interest.

Think about that. A government gets elected to pass the laws that its citizens want -- and then gets sued under an international trade agreement for doing exactly what it was elected to do.

Think that won't happen? It already has.
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Testifying before hearings into the TPP in New Zealand last week, Osgoode Hall law professor Gus Van Harten said that while ISDS provisions have existed in trade deals before, the TPP marks a watershed. That's because the TPP, along with a proposed trade deal between Europe and the United States, would expand coverage of ISDS provisions from 20 per cent of the world economy to up to 90 per cent .

That means that virtually the entire world economy would be ruled by these undemocratic ISDS tribunals, which put corporate profits ahead of public policy, the environment or labour rights. In fact, ISDS is a one-way street, with only private industries given the right to sue, while protecting them against state or citizen lawsuits.

The TPP, in other words, is a lop-sided deal that favours the rights of corporations over the people, a reflection of the blind faith placed in so-called free trade by our former Conservative government.

- Fernando Arce reports on the plight of migrant workers lacking any protection from Canada's federal government. And Desmond Cole sees the issue as one of the most stark examples of our seeing workers as disposable.

- Meanwhile, Anna Mehler Paperny reports on a continued pattern of immigrants being shut away in solitary confinement for years at a time due to the belief that option is easier than providing treatment.

- Chantal Hebert writes that Maryam Monsef's utterly senseless talking points on electoral reform are burning bridges to people who were more than willing to work with the Libs on a fair electoral system. And Jeremy Nuttall talks to Nathan Cullen about the obvious problems with the Libs' self-serving committee design.

- Finally, Eric Pineault comments on the trend toward extreme oil extraction - and the need to start building our economy on a more stable and less dangerous foundation.